CHAPTERS FOR THE TIMES. 



FIRST PART. 



BY A BERKSIIIRE FARMER. 



" The times are out of joint." 

Hamlet. 



LEE: 

OFFICE OF THE VALLEY GLEANER, 

BERKSHIRE CO., MASSACHUSETTS. 

1884. 



5-^- 






To THE 

FARMERS OF MASSACHUSETTS, 

WITHOUT DISTINCTION OF PARTY, 

THESE CHAPTERS FOR THE TIMES 

'Site iU^pcctfuIIg in^rrtfictr. 






CHAPTERS FOR THE THMES. 



I. 

WHITE PLUMES AXD THE WHITE FEATHER. 

It is not so much the white plume that the country has reason 
to fear at the present time as it is the white feather. The 
danger is that men will not act up to the standard of their con- 
victions. The Republican party has a presidential candiilate 
who is opposed by the strongest and most influential Republican 
journals, distinctly on the ground of his corrupt antecedents. It 
is patent that his nomination was engineered at Chicago by the 
money, the manipulation, and the hurrahs of the Star Route 
thieves, and receives its warmest support among the most auda- 
cious and unscrupulous gamblers of ^Vall Street. These men 
are all on the make. Birds of a feather flock together. When 
Mr. Blaine was so very sick and like to die at the outcome of 
the Mulligan matter, who imagined that cnougli life could ever 
be galvanized into him to make him a presidential candidate of 
the Republican party ? But the thieves and the gaud)lers rep- 
resent the strong idea in the Blaine canvass. " Put money in 
your purse ? " No, " Put money in our purses." 

Now what do the white-feather men say? '* We are Republi- 
cans and we must support the Republican ticket, no matter who 
is tlie candidate." Why ? The journals whicli made such a 
hullabaloo over General Butler as a bad man — can they sliow 
that Mr. Blaine is a better ? 

Party fidelity is a good thing, but honest^', truth, and ])atriot- 
ism are better things. What constitutes the merit of i)arty 
fidelity? It is the merit of the objects the party desires to 
accomplish. When it became clear to jiolitical aspirants and 



4 Chapters for the Tivies. 

party leadei'S that a public sentiment against slavery had been 
developed that woidd sweep slavery away, Whigs, Democrats, 
and Free Soilers combined, under the name of the Kepublican 
party, and away slavery was swept. And shall the combination 
that destroyed slavery make men slaves to the notion that party 
fidelity requires them to work together to effect other objects in 
which they have no longer a common interest ? The people are 
more interested in having an honest and pure administration 
than they jDossibly can be in the success of any set of party 
leaders. A man who votes from a view of party obligation for 
a man or a measure he disapproves requires some new emanci- 
pation act to make a freeman of him. He voluntarily submits 
to the basest kind of bondage. 

It is not possible that the Republican farmers of Berkshire 
County will be wheeled into line, as a flock of sheep in the 
Highlands is driven by the trained dogs of the shepherd. The 
Star Route thieves have succeeded in capturing the Republi- 
can Convention, and their nominee is the nominee of Stephen 
B. Elkins, Kellogg, Brady, Price, Dorsey, Salisbury, and the 
gang whose object is to run the Republican party for the most 
money there is in it. The farmers are considering whether this 
can be the best thing for the country, and if they come to the 
conclusion that it is not, it will be hard to convince them that 
party fidelity is a sufficient excuse for the betrayal of the coun- 
try. Our paramount duty is owing to the Republic, and not to 
the Republican party. 

Hostility to slavery and the preservation of a slaveless union 
were the pivotal ideas of the Republican organization. Slavery 
is gone, and nothing turns on it now. The salvation of the 
Union is still an issue, and may Heaven save it from the hands 
of the Elkinses, the Goulds, the Dorseys, and the Blaines ! 

At another time I may have a word more to say to the great 
men of the Republican party. Meanwhile I would ask Gover- 
nor Robinson what has become of the great moral stalking horse 
that he curveted on so gallantly last summer and autumn ? 
Mr. Senator Dawes and Mr. Senator Hoar, what business have 
you in the ranks of the Star Route thieves ? You are purists, 
and have a holy horror of Democratic iniquities. Since the de- 
faulters of Jackson's time and Van Buren's there has never 
been such a gang as the Star Route thieves ; and these men, 



Ovcr-Taxaiinn Tjrdninj. 5 

countenanced, protected, and saved from the penitt;iitiary hy lic- 
publiean iniluenee, manage to ilietate the nominations of the 
llepublican convention. Tlie people rose against the i)arty of 
the defaulters, and crushed thrm hy tlie elei-tion of (iciicral Har- 
rison. This l)arty of the people is again in the field. Tln-v are 
the only third party we recpiire to elect an honest man, if siicli 
a man should be offered for tlieir suffrage. 
June 30, 1884. 



II. 

OVER-TAXATION TYRANNY. 

TJie Plumed KnUjht and the Surplus. 

From the earliest times to the present, the great effort of the 
governing class in Idngdoms, empires, and republics has l)een 
and is to squeeze all the money possible out of the people in the 
shape of taxes, direct and indirect, gifts, imposts, duties, assess- 
ments, capitations, grants, and stealings generally. Governing 
has always been a first-class business for smart men. 

Excuses for taking the people's money vary from time to 
time. Sometimes it is for the defense of the realm and some- 
times for asrsrressive war. Then come contracts for food and 
clothing, and munitions and arms and all sorts of military 
supplies, and thence " profits do accrue " to the governing class 
and their friends. The people in some shape pay the piper, 
and the managers and hangers-on of the government grow rich 
at the people's expense. Sometimes it is for building palaces, 
and for laying out gardens and terraces and boscjuets, and fish- 
ponds and water-works. Louis XIV. and his ministers under- 
stood these processes in their day. The courtiers and contrac- 
tors — the men who pocketed tlie money wrung from the jieo- 
ple — assured the people that it was the best thing in the wtuld 
for them to pay this money, — that it gave work and wages to 
the builders and artisans, and made the gold circulate. The 
people did not know but what it was best, they were told so with 
such confidence. 

Few, comparatively, profited by these levies on the people. 
The men who collected the money, they feathered their nests. 



6 Chapters for the Times. 

The men who received the money helped themselves to what 
they thought was about a fair share, liberally estimated. The 
men who spent the money made their contracts judiciously, and 
never omitted to take their percentage. There was always a 
handsome margin for the governors. Then the favored con- 
tractor sub-let at a sj^lendid profit, and another circle was let in 
who were interested in raising moneys from the people for the 
" support of the government." These rings all told embraced 
an inconsiderable number of persons, but they succeeded in con- 
vincing the people that it was good for them to be robbed and 
plundei-ed, till fi-om painful experience the people began to 
doubt it, till doubt became conviction, and one day they rose 
u]! and did a great deal of wild work with gallows and guil- 
lotine. 

But what a high time it would have been for the Louises if 
they had been able for a series of years not only to raise all the 
money that they could spend, but a surplus of five hundred 
millions of francs that they did not know what to do with ! 

For our French friends this would have been a difficulty, but 
in our case the conundrum has been solved by Mr. James 
Gillespie Blaine. Raise from the people hundreds of millions 
of dollars, and when the pension agents and pensioners are sat- 
isfied, and we have paid the interest on our public debt and a 
large block of the principal, and have squandered millions more 
in local harbor and river bills with no rivers and no harbors 
behind them, and have built at the cost of untold millions all 
the post-offices and custom-houses that we can find sites for, and 
have glutted the appetite of the Star Route thieves, and have 
sunk millions by the hundred in fortifications that do not for- 
tify, and on defensive navies that cannot defend, we will con- 
tinue to raise a hundred million of dollars more than we can 
possibly spend, and will distribute it among the States I 

That is Mr. Blaine's idea of what the people are good for, — 
to pay money that by some of the numerous channels to which 
I have alluded can come into the hands of the smart men who 
constitute the governing class. It is the old, old story. So the 
people were regarded by their rulers in Rome ; so in France, so 
in P^ngland. Our rulers make a better thing of it for them- 
selves and their friends than rulers have ever done before, and 
the created wealth which in its countless manipulations enables 



Over- TaxiU inn Tyraymy. 7 

the govonuTifj^ class to raise these iiiinu-nst! sur]>hiSL'.s and 
squander tlieiu with sueh reckless prodigality, comes from tlio 
men who till the soil, work the mines, and follow the sea. Labor 
does it all. 

Thomas Jefferson told your fathers, farmers of lierkshire, 
and your fathers believed in him, that we recjuired, to make ua 
a happy and prosperous people, a " wise and frutjnl ^j^overn- 
ment, which shall restrain meu from injuring- one another, shall 
leave them otherwise free to regulate their own i)ursuits of in- 
dustry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of 
labor the bread it has earned." " This," he adiled, " is the sum 
of good government." Therefore it was that he recommended 
" economy in the jniblic exj)cnsc that labor may he Vufhthj hur- 
dcnedr 

James Gillespie Blaine believes in a government that shall 
continue to le\'y on the people an excess over the reckless and 
boundless present expenditure of an hundred millions of dol- 
lars, to he distributed amony the States. What wonder that the 
Star Route thieves and the men who want to become Star Koute 
thieves rally round the Plumed Knight, who "couches his 
lance," as Senator Frye tells us, for this magnificent charge on 
the treasury and the people of the United States ! 

In a Berkshire weekly paper I have noticed a paragraph 
laudatory of an article in which Judge Kobinson '* explains " 
his determination to support i\lr. Blaine for the presidency, and 
gives an " exhaustive and irresistible argument " in su])port of 
those Republican journals which, " saying they woidd ne'er con- 
sent, consented " to accept him as their candidate. 

When I obtain a copy of the " model article," which shows 
the voters of Berkshire how a " fatal and irretrievable nomina- 
tion " can evolute into a very desirable election, I will i)ay my 
respects to it. Meanwhile I woidd ask the Judge to "explain" 
if he referred to Mr, Blaine wlien he ^vrote '*7kj man of doubt- 
ful record and policy shoidd be nominated^ The context in- 
dicates that he could have referred to no one else. What did 
he intend by the words " doubtfid record " ? For if a man of 
" doubtfid record " ought not to be nominated, one might well 
enough suppose that a man of '* doubtfid record " ought not to 
be supported by voters who honestly entertain this opinion. 

Jidy 7, 1884. 



8 Chavters for the Times, 

III. 

THE FIGHT BETWEEN THE OFFICE-HOLDERS AND THE PEOPLE. 

Blaine or Cleveland? 

Two party conventions have now met and presented their 
respective candidates for the presidential office. One conven- 
tion was an exceedingly boisterous and turbulent assemblage of 
custom-house officers, jsostmasters, and boss politicians of the 
Republican party, who in a hurricane of shouts, yells, cat-calls, 
and tin-pan cymbals nominated Mr. James G. Blaine, and went 
into idiotic ecstasies over a helmet with a white plume paraded 
as the emblem of their candidate and the sign under which they 
hope to conquer the people. The master spirit of the conven- 
tion, more efficient, perhaps, than any other man in producing 
the result, was the collector of customs from New York, — an 
office-holder with many hundred obedient subordinates, repre- 
senting and inspired by the sentiment that the country belongs 
to the office-liolders, and that its revenues are their legitimate 
and inalienable spoils. 

For four-and-twenty years, all the offices of honor and profit 
in the United States have been substantially in the possession 
of the leaders and managers of the Republican party. No set 
of men has ever held possession of them for a longer period. 
The Democrats controlled them for twenty-four years, from the 
inauguration of Jefferson to the inauguration of John Quincy 
Adams. Then came an interregnum. Though a Democrat, Mr. 
Adams was not the nominee of the congressional caucus, and a 
new party was formed in his support. Four years the govern- 
ment was in the hands of National Republicans, and the legiti- 
mate succession was interrupted. Mr. Adams was not magnetic 
or a manipidator of men, and the power of the offices was 
wielded to a great extent by his opponents. Once again the 
Democratic party proper was reinstated in their possession. 
Eight years under General Jackson, and four years under 
Martin Van Buren, the office-holders ruled the country with a 
rod of iron. An hundred thousand strong, they managed the 
primary meetings, packed the conventions, nominated the can- 
didates, dictated the policy of the government in their plat- 



Tlie Fhjld Between the Office-ITolders arui the J'^.j^h-. 9 

forms, and not contented with the hiwfid fees of their otVieeH, in 
many hundii'ds of instances used the funds of the ^ovfrnnient 
as their own. Frauds and defalcations became the onler of tho 
day. The better ])ortion of the Democratic j>arty revolted 
ajrainst this corrui)t domination. Under the lead (»f Kives of 
Virginia, Tallnuidge of New York, and White anil Bell of Ten- 
nessee, the revolt was made eiTeetive. The issue was distinctly 
taken between the people and the office-holders, and the peojtle 
triumphed in the election of (ieneral Harrison. The strugj^dc 
was a severe and doubtfid one. The office-holders denounced 
the seceding- Democrats as bolters and traitors, as they denounce 
the Independents now. Anil what they call "loyalty to the 
grand old party " meant just exactly what it means to-day, — 
loyalty to the office-holders, loyalty to the men who have sus- 
tained the corruptions of the (Irant r(igime, the remunerating 
and grateful policy of Hayes, a.nd the questionable because 
questioned record of Garfield ! 

The Republican convention that nominated Blaine was to all 
intents and purposes a convention of office-holders, in the same 
sense as was the convention that nominated ^ an Buren in 1839. 
No candidate stood the ghost of a chance in it except the two 
adroit politicians who could rally and manoeu\Te the forces of 
the post-office, the custom-house, and the departments. Arthur 
and Blaine held the convention from the start, and the result 
was a foregone conclusion. For ten years Mr. Blaine has en- 
joyed opportunities, and has availed himself of them, to organ- 
ize and educate to his purposes the tremendous i)halanx that 
makes a business of politics and lives on its emoluments. Tho 
men who set up for the " leadership," the men who claim to be 
the " organizing force " in the Republican party, the men who 
run the government for the money in it, have for years looked 
up to Mr. Blaine as their natiual-born chief, and reams of Mul- 
ligan letters, each more disgraceful than the rest, could not shako 
their allegiance or impair thi'ir loyalty. President Arthur's 
experience has been a briefer and more local experience. His 
manipulation of ward primaries Mr. P)laine has extended over 
counties and states, and though Arthur nominally captured and 
apparently controlled for some purposes a considerable number 
of delegates to the convention, it was well understood among 
them that Blaine had the inside track, and that he was tho most 



10 Chapters for the Times. 

authentic exponent of the Republican doctrines as they are un- 
derstood by the office-holders and exhibited by the Star Route 
thieves. 

Against the corrupt alliance of office-holders and jobbers in 
politics, the people have put their presidential candidate in nom- 
ination in the person of Grover Cleveland of New York. He is 
presented for our suffrages by the Democratic convention, in 
obedience to the irresistible pressure of public opinion. Op- 
posed bitterly by the most trenchant and eccentric Democratic 
journal in the country and by the most powerful faction of the 
Democratic party in his own State, with statesmen and leaders 
of his party more distinguished than himself in competition for 
the nomination, the people have made in all quarters such an 
emphatic demand for his candidacy that it would have been 
madness for the Democratic convention to refuse to listen to it. 

The story of Grover Cleveland is a short one. By his fellow- 
citizens he was placed in the mayoralty of Buffalo at a time 
when the municipal service was badly debauched, and the level 
head and the strong hand of a bold and honest reformer were 
required for the public protection. In this position he distin- 
guished himself by the exhibition of the qualities that were de- 
manded. The attention of his fellow-citizens throughout the 
State was directed toward him. He seemed the very man that 
they wanted for the chair of the governor. He was placed in 
nomination by the Democratic party of which he was a member. 
The people of the State seconded the nomination, and he became 
the governor of New York by the largest majority ever given to 
a gubernatorial candidate. In this position he has more than 
maintained, he has largely added to, his reputation as a discreet, 
faithful, firm, intelligent, and honest public servant. He has 
been the tool of no clique, no ring, no faction, no party. He 
has had but one aim — his duty. He has known but one mas- 
ter — the people. And now the people rise in their strength, 
and with a general acclaim ])ronounce their judgment, " Thou 
hast been faithful over a few things, we will make thee ruler 
over many things ! " 

And why should the farmers of Berkshire turn their backs 
on him, whether they have called themselves Democrats or 
Republicans ? The cry is raised of " loyalty to party ! " What 
does that mean, practically, but loyalty to the office-holders? 



The Oflice-HoJ.h-rs' liatlficatlon. 11 

The Re]inbHean party has accomplisheil its mission. It hu.s 
saved the I'liion and ch'stroyed slavery. Ai*e we ca.lLd upon 
to be loyal to the eorruptious iu the navy department, in tho 
land offiees, in the Indian hureau, in tho pust-<jflu!e ? Are 
we bound to go forever for thinj^s as they are, when we see tho 
people robbed of hundreds of thousands by the Star Route 
thieves, and the Republican office-holders unwilling or incom- 
petent to secure their punishment? AVhon we sec the Repub- 
lican counsel for the people suggesting to their attorney-gen- 
eral that it might be well to consult Avith ISIr. Chandler as to 
the political effect of putting a particular witness on the stand 
whose testimony might damage the Republican party? Justice 
may suffer, but the office-holders must be protected. Loyalty 
to the party, the whole length and breadth of which in the pres- 
ent position of the party with regard to its essential principles, 
I repeat, is loyalty to the office-holders I Shall we hear noth- 
ing of loyalty to the country ? Of loyalty to truth, honor, and 
patriotism ? Of loyalty to common sense and common honesty ? 
Of loyalty to the principle that excessive and extravagant taxa- 
tion is tj-ranny, and tyranny in its most odious shape, and that 
the great want of the nation now is a frugal and honest govern- 
ment that labor may be less heavily burdened ? 

Elected as the choice of the people, with the full knowledge 
that he never has been and never will be the slave of a faction, 
Grover Cleveland will give us such a government. 

Jubj 12, 1884. 



IV. 

THE office-holders' RATIFICATION. 

Mr. Blaine's Argument for the Money Power. — Democratic Ag- 
gressiveness Sufficient. 

In my first chapter I promised to say a word more to Gov- 
ernor Robinson, Senator Hoar, and Senator Dawes ; and I do 
not know that a more fitting opportunity will occur tiian is 
afforded by their appearance together at the meeting of the. Re- 
publicans in Boston to ratify the presidential nominations of 
their not very recent convention at Cliicago. In tiie same con- 



12 Chapters for the Times. 

nection I may redeem tlie promise of paying my respects to 
JuJo-e Robiuson and his political papers in the North Adams 
" Transcript." The speakers at the ratification meeting dis- 
cussed the same topics and put forward similar arguments, with 
the view of demonstrating to the Republicans of the State that 
while Mr. Blaine ought not to have been nominated for the 
presidency, he ought to be elected. 

In our happy country, considered as a Federal Union, we have 
two classes of office-holders. One class is elected by the peo- 
ple and the States, and the other class is appointed by the 
Executive, sometimes with and sometimes without the concur- 
rence of the Senate, a body of office-holders elected by the 
States. In practice, the Executive has little or nothing to do 
with the selection of postmasters, custom-house officers, the 
officers in the judicial departments or the internal revenue ser- 
vice. They are appointed on the recommendation of the rep- 
resentative in Congress in the appointee's district, or of one or 
both of the U. S. senators from his State. Officers in the de- 
partments and the diplomatic service are appointed on similar 
recommendations. This immense body of men, occupying offices 
of honor or offices of profit, or offices both of honor and profit, 
constitute what is called the " organizing force " of the Repub- 
lican party. What that means may be gathered from the make- 
up of the ratification meeting held a few days since in Boston. 

The presiding officer, Mr. Lodge, is an important member of 
the " organizing force," being chairman of the Republican State 
Committee, and a Republican candidate for the IT. S. House 
of Representatives. Then we have Mr. Dawes and Mr. Hoar, 
senators of the United States, Mr. Long, a member of the 
lower House, Governor Robinson, whose reelection demands 
loyalty to the "organizing force," an ex-collector of customs 
with a grateful recollection of the official flesh-pots, an ex-mem- 
ber of Congress, and a grocer in good standing to represent the 
business element as a desirable addition to the office-holding 
element of the meeting. So much for the platform. On the 
floor were the followers and licnchmen, who were indebted to 
the " big Indians " on the platform for their places, and, as 
their chairman has phrased it in another connection, sneeze 
when their master takes snuff. These men, all of them, have 
an interest distinct from that of the people. They are so con- 



The Office- llulders' Itatification. 13 

nected with the orgauizatidii that they must hit loyul to it. 
There is no help for it. Tliey are the orj^^anization, uiul mu^t 
be loyal to themselves ; ami that is just what they ukuii when 
they call on the rank and lile to be loyal to the party, and pro- 
pose to shoot the deserters. 

" Loyalty," his own loyalty to the convention of ofiiee-lioUl- 
ers, — for as. we see it in Massachusetts, so is it throuLjh the 
whole length and breadth of the country, from Maine to Louis- 
iana and from Maryland to California, the " orgauizaticjn " in 
its present aspect is the residt of office-holding affiliations, — 
this " loyalty " is the burden of Mr. Lotlge's opening aildress. 
The only other point outside of the commonplaces of the stump 
is the philosophical reflection, born of Mr. Lodge's studies and 
experience, that parties cannot arise out of personal issues. The 
gi-eatest party that ever flourished in this country was tlie Jack- 
son party. It was his devoted personal following that elected 
General Jackson, and enabled him to impose his own policy 
upon the country, without regard to party platforms or tradi- 
tions except so far as he saw fit to adopt them. General Jack- 
son himself was the issue, and the only vital issue, at his first 
election as well as the second, and he might have changed his 
policy on vital questions without losing his ascendency with the 
people. Personality will have a great deal to do with the pres- 
ent canvass. The people believe in the integrity, the firmness, 
and the patriotism of Grover Cleveland. They are consequently 
attracted by his personality ; and in spite of the combination 
against him of office, money, and jobbery, the people will make 
him President. " With money we will get partisans, with ]>ar- 
tisans votes, and v/itli votes money," is the maxim of the Dor- 
seys and Bradys to-day, as it was said to be of the public pil- 
ferers firty years ago. 

" There are two parties," is the cry of Lodge, Eobinson, 
Hoar, Dawes, and Long ; " there are two parties," and you 
must fight it out on that jdatform, no matter who are the can- 
didates. There are two parties, true, and there is a reserve 
force of the people, of the men who are not office-lu)lders. and 
who do not want office, who owe allegiance to the Constitution 
and the country, and wear the collar of no sect or f:iction. 
They are not partisans, and are not to be fooled by the rant 
and fustian of any "organizing force" that offiee and ioblicry 
may combine to shackle them with. 



14 Chapters for the Times. 

What a terrible falling off in the curveting gubernatorial 
candidate of the purists since last autumn, when he is obliged 
to culminate and cap-sheaf his ratifying speech with the Bob 
Acres cry of " We won't run ! " And yet here it is : " Now we 
will not desert our posts because somebody may call us hard 
names, or because somebody may fling insinuations at the plat- 
form or the candidates." No ! " We won't run ! " Any man, 
seemingly, would be a simpleton to run from "hard names " or 
an " insinuation " only. But Governor Robinson does run away 
from the issue, and is afraid to meet the positive charges which 
he dismisses as " insinuations," and the well- deserved epithets 
which he euphuistically calls " hard names." 

And how is it with Mr. Senator Hoar? There are three 
salient points in his speech : One is the fact that some of the 
Southern States have not yet emerged from the habits of vio- 
lence and disregard of human life engendered by years of war 
and bloodshed. I admit it. So in the city of New York, and 
in some of the villages on Long Island, shocking and barbarous 
murders have been committed during this very last year by 
colored ruffians. It would be as well to argue from this that all 
colored men are ruffians, and that the constitutional amend- 
ments in behalf of the race were a great mistake, as to argue 
from the fact that some Democrats were murderers in Copiah, 
that aU Southern Democrats are murderers, and ought there- 
fore to be excluded from all participation in Federal affairs for 
an indefinite period. 

Another point was made against the influence of Harvard 
College. Senator Hoar alleges that the influence of President 
Eliot, and of a little body of men about him, has "tended in- 
finitely to degrade the public life of the Commonwealth." The 
only comment I make on all this, is to advise the honorable 
senator to walk through Memorial Hall, study the portraits, 
and read the tablets. President Eliot may not be an expert in 
the carriage business, or be practically wise on the tariff ques- 
tion, but wliy on tliis account he should figure so largely in Mr. 
Hoar's ratifying speech is beyond my comprehension. 

The third point is the statesmanship of Mr. Blaine. 

Since Mr. Hoar's speech was delivered, the "consummate 
flower " of Mr. Blaine's statesmanship has been exhibited, in 
the greatest effort of his life, his letter of acceptance of the 



Tlie Office- Ilohler 8* liatificatiun. 16 

nomination, which Seuatur Hour and his ussociutc office-holders 
have been ratifying. The success with wliich he kcc^ts out of 
view in this important paper all the questions that arc of any 
immediate interest except to the jobbers ami olHce-holdci\s, is 
something remarkable. It is written all over, in big capitals, 
with Money ! Money ! Money ! One would suppose the cry 
came from Wall Street, and not from a rural district in Maine. 
Mr. Blaine gloats over the big figm-es. lie becomes enthusi- 
astic and fanatic over the millions that we have added to t^he 
public wealth. Nay, millions are nothing ; he launches into un- 
counted billions. It is enough to make the mouth water of lUl 
the jobbers and Star Route thieves in the country. His language 
and figures are very like the language and figures of the illus- 
trious Ward. All these big profits, he avers, are the result of 
government legislation, as AVard's were the result of govern- 
ment contracts. Tremendous profits on paper ! Money with- 
out beginning or end for somebody! For whom? Farmers of 
Berkshire, how much of it has ever found its way into your 
pockets ? Some of it may be traced to Blaine, some to Dorsey, 
some to Brady, a good deal of it into the hanils of the 0})ulent 
Mr. Jones, who is running tlie Blaine machine in the city of 
New York till the election, more into the hands of the (ioulds 
and the Sages and the Vandcrbilts. All the rich men have 
been' made a good deal richer, and all the poor men relatively 
poorer, by this legislation, that now threatens to bury jicrsonal 
honor and public virtue under an avalanche of gold. But the 
shrinkage, Mr. Blaine 1 How much of this fabulous wealth 
exists on paper only, for you cannot have forgotten how these 
profits from government undertakings sometimes wind uj) ? It 
may be another Grant & Ward business : liabilities, !?1 6,000,- 
000 ; nominal assets, 827,000,000 ; actual assets, 865,000. 

I must say one word on the aggression question. All these 
speakers are apprehensive that if we make Grover Cleveland 
President, we shall not have a sufficiently aggressive i)olicy. 
Aggi-ession is to be the supjilement of money to elect Mr. 
Blaine. Is he going to be more aggressive than the Demo- 
crats ? The Democrats mad»» rather an aggressive assault on 
the Constitution when they acquired Louisiana and the Floridas. 
The Democrats made the war against England of 1812. The 
Democrats announced the Monroe doctrine, and have never 



16 Chapters for the Times. 

abandoned it. The Democrats threatened France with war 
when she was shiggish in paying up, and they got the money. 
The Democrats annexed Texas. The Democrats cried out 
"54.40 or fight!" when the northwestern boundary was in 
dispute. The Democrats declared war against Mexico, and 
acquired California and New Mexico. I am not a Democrat. 
As far as these aggressions were in my time, I have not sym- 
pathized with them or approved them. One would suppose 
that this record is aggressive enough and American enough 
to make it extremely difficult for Mr. Blaine to better it. 
July 20, 188-1. 



V. 

THE DIVIDE OF THE SURPLUS. 

Is it the Church and the School-House, or the Custom-House and 
Fost-Ojfice? — Cwsar's Wife, and Slander. 

Before discussing new matters, permit me to refer to a topic 
treated in a former chapter. It has been observed that Mr. 
Blaine's Mulligan letters are not the only epistles of the gentle- 
man to which we take exception. His letter on the policy of so 
taxing the people as to create an enormous surplus, and to 
distribute it among the States, was perhaps equally conclusive 
on the question of his fitness for the presidency. It was so 
treated ; and it is gratifying to find that my views are confirmed 
by the views of Republicans, who in an eminent degree deserve 
and enjoy the public confidence. Senator John F. Andrew, son 
of our lamented war governor, says that the proposition of 
Mr. Blaine in this regard is " outrageous as well as unconstitu- 
tional," and " shows that he is not fit to hold the office which 
he seeks." Jam(is Speed, of Kentucky, the only surviving 
member of President Lincoln's cabinet, in a letter to a friend, 
dated the 19th inst., avers that " his [Blaine's] letter about the 
surplus revenue is monstrous," and " shows him to be as unsafe 
in his views of the framework of our government as he is in 
regard to international law." "Unconstitutional," "outrage- 
ous," " monstr(»us," demonstrating his unfitness for the presi- 
dency. Hard words these. Governor liobiuson ; why should 



The Divide of the Surplus. 17 

yoii or your fiioiuls desert your posts because " somebody " 
" Hings iusiuuatioiKs at your candidate " ? 

But one word more for Senator Iloar. On reading liis 
speech a second time, two or three reflections suggest them- 
selves. Though he starts with the remark that he " brinjrs no 
sneer at those whose judgment as to their duty may differ from 
his own," he alludes to President Eliot as an " innocent," and 
Mr. James Freeman Clarke as a " venerable doctor of divin- 
ity," in " Democratic alliance " with the murderers of Copiah. 
Their judgment differs from his own as to the propiicty of ele- 
vating to the presidency a partisan with a " doubtful record," 
and he expresses himself with a sneer that amounts to emphatic 
contempt. The honorable senator, however, considers it a 
feather in Mr. Blaine's cap that his nomination is the "" nomi- 
nation of the church and of the school-house." Bishop Blaine 
and Schoolmaster Logan ! Now of what church is Mr. Blaine 
the nominee ? Of the Roman Catholic Church, or the Epis- 
copal, or the church without a bishop ? If this is not mere 
flunmiery and fustian, it is an averment that Mr. Blaine's nom- 
ination is that of an absolutely clerical convention. This whis- 
tling, singing, bawling, yelling, shrieking posse of office-holders, 
that ran wild at the sight of an empty helmet with a plume on 
it, and behaved like a mob let loose from Bedlam, Senator 
Hoar perhaps wishes us to regard as a convocation of clergy- 
men and scholars. If this is true, it is capable of jiroof. Pro- 
duce your vouchers, brother Hoar, and let us know if your 
church was any other than that in which Dorsey is head deacon, 
and Brady is trusted to hand round the plate. 

It was 7)ot the nomination of tlie church and the school-house ; 
the school-house and the church repudiate it. The nomination 
was that of the post-office and custom-house, that organization 
banded and entrenched, which fmds its cohesive and inii)elHng 
power in offices and jobs and contracts, in party spoils and i)ublic 
plunder. Two such masters in the art of wire-pulling, two men 
so versed in the tricks and trade of politics, two such shrewd tac- 
ticians in marshaling and managing the mercenaries of a party, 
two such adepts and experts in intrigue and strateg}' as Arthur 
and Blaine, have never before boon pitted against eacli otlier in 
any contest for a presidential nomination. What they did not 
know about packing conventions was not wortli knowing, and 



18 Chapters for the Times. 

tlieir combined exertions brought together the most turbulent, 
unscruj)ulous, and greedy set of office-holders and office-seekers 
that were to be found in the country. Mr. Hoar himself lets 
out the fact that the convention was full of office-holders. He 
describes the men who voted for Arthur as a solid column of 
office-holders. Collector Robertson led the column for Blaine, 
and his followers were of the same stripe. Blaine had the ad- 
vantage over Arthur of his ten years Federal experience in the 
business, and the master hands, the old stagers, the veteran job- 
bers, were bound to him by stronger attractions than they could 
find in the somewhat indolent and easy-going Arthur. They 
knew that when Blaine wrote his letter about the Surplus and 
the Divide, he meant business, and would not disapjioint tliem. 
The " innocent " college president and the venerable divine 
were nowhere in the convention. The reformers, some three- 
score and ten in number, were sat down upon, incontinently ; 
and, saddened, sickened, and humiliated, returned to their re- 
spective constituencies. Some of them concluded afterward to 
swallow the leek, and ratify. They eat crow and humble pie 
publicly, and call u2:)on you, farmers of Bei'kshire, to show your 
" loyalty " to the " organization " by following their example. 
Decline the honor of dining with them on any such viands. 
They are not wholesome. 

Now about Caesar's wife. Mr. Codman had said at a meeting 
of Independents that all political parties hitherto in this coun- 
try had acted on the belief that the presidential candidates 
ought to be, like Caesar's wife, above suspicion. In the special 
application of this phrase he intends that they ought to be above 
the suspicion of having used their official position as the source 
of private emolument. Superiority to pecuniary inducements 

— a perfect immunity from the slightest mistrust on this score 

— has eminently characterized eveiy man of any party except 
the Rei^ublican party who has ever occupied the j)residential 
chair. No party before the Republican has ever put in nomi- 
nation for that high place any man who has ever been charged 
with prostituting political office to personal gain. Judge Rob- 
inson was right when he said that no man of a " doubtful 
record" ought to be nominated to that office. Mr. Codman 
was perfectly right when he averred that a presidential can- 
didate ought to be " above suspicion." 



The Divide of the Surplus. 11 » 

But what says Mr. Hoar? He does not think it all noees.sary. 
On the contrary, hu tliinks Ciesar a very base fellow for entor- 
tainin<j and acting on such a sentiment, and says " he never did 
a baser thing* than when lie abandoned his wife because some- 
body slandered her." Or, as (jovernor Uobinson would phrase 
it, '' flung insinuations ; " or, as Senator Dawes would say, " vitu- 
perated ; " or Keju'csentative Long, more gently, '' abused " her. 
Senator Hoar unintentionally slanders Ciesar. The great man 
did not put his wife away because somebody slandered her. A 
young rake by the name of Clodius had been paying attentions 
to the lady, that were noticed and checked by the vigilance of 
her mother-in-law, who probably thought them a little too 
marked to be honorable to her son. For tliis state of affairs, 
Clodius was obliged to take some extra pains to gain access to 
Pompeia ; and at a meeting exclusively of women, held for some 
religious ceremony at Caesar's house, over which his wife pre- 
sided, Clodius entered the house in a female disguise. He was 
discovered and ejected without ceremony, stripped of his gar- 
ments. The affair created a great sensation, and was brought 
up in the the Senate, and in the College of Priests, where Clo- 
dius was charged with sacrilege. What other grounds Caesar 
may have had to justify his actions we do not know. The ter- 
rible scandal made public the association of Clodius and Pom- 
peia, with all that such an association implies. Caesar as pres- 
ident of the College of Priests had acquiesced in tiie judg- 
ment. He separated from his wife. He did not cliarge her 
with criminality, but circumstances were against her ; and he 
assigned as the reason for the divorce thatCiesar's wife nnist be 
above suspicion. Most gentlemen in our time would prefer a 
wife of that kind. 

There were probably gootl reasons to doubt the com])lieity of 
Pompeia in the introduction of Clodius iw'.o the pontiHeal jjalace, 
and Caesar gave her the benefit of the doubt by declining to in- 
timate that he considered her guilty. But there is no such mo- 
tive of delicacy to prevent men of sense from incpiiring into tlie 
charges against Mr. Blaine. They wei-e universally believed to 
be true at the time. The very leading and most widely circu- 
lated Rei)ubllcan journals, with the best opjwi-tunities for kno\\- 
ing the facts through their numerous correspondents and re])orfc- 
ers, and with every inducement to sustain regidar n«>minations. 



20 Chapters for the Times. 

reiterate these charges to-day, and on account of their knowl- 
edge of the candidate refuse to support him. In this view of the 
case, what rubbish is all this talk about "slander" and "vitupera- 
tion" and " abuse," and with how little respect these "best men" 
treat the intelligence of the people, when they tell you, as Mr. 
Dawes tells you, that these charges, true or false, are " decora- 
tions " of liis candidate, and make " fast friends." 

Vituperation and abuse seem to have made " fast friends " of 
Senators Hoar and Dawes, but it was the vituperation and 
abuse of Massachusetts. I have a faint recollection of a field 
day somewhere when the " plumed knight " couched his lance 
and made a tilt at Massachusetts. The men who should have 
met liini in that field and chastised him for his vulgar insolence 
made but a feeble defense, and Massachusetts was thought to 
have had the worst of it. Does Mr. Hoar remember that day ? 
Does Mr. Dawes ? Will they please rise and explain if it is 
the recollection of that day and scene that binds them by such 
links of iron to the cause of the " plumed kuight," and to their 
remarkable estimate of his " decorations " ? 

Jubj 24, 1884. 



VI. 

ORGANIZATION OF OFFICE-HOLDERS. 

Bribing tlwPeople. — Audacious Evasion of Law. 

Before commenting further on the speeches of the office- 
holders at the Republican ratification meeting in Boston, I will 
tender the admission that all the office-holders and all Repub- 
lican candidates. State and Federal, will rally and work for 
Blaine and Logan. The organization under Blaine in 1884 is 
identical in its aims and purposes with the organization under 
Van Buren in 1839. It is a struggle of the office-holders against 
reform. It is a struggle to perpetuate the organization which 
levies an hundred millions of unnecessary taxes on labor, that 
office-holders and their followings of jobbers, contractors, and 
speculators in politics may l)e enriched at the public expense. 
Here and thei-e you will find a man like Senator Andrew, but 
there will be only a few such men ; the maelstrom will suck in 



Organization of Office-IIolders. 21 

the miiltitiule. The idea of loyalty to the orfranization ; the in- 
stinct of official self-preservation ; the fear tliat if they ilo not 
hang together they may hang sepai-ately ; old habits ; fjimiliar 
associations ; common interests weld together the links and rivets 
of a combination that involves the whole country in its folds, 
and presents almosts insuperable obstacles to every effort for 
reform. 

It is now some eight years since Senator Hoar told us on a 
memorable occasion what he had seen and heard of the nn- 
worthiness of our public men. lie had heard that " sus])i<'ion 
haunts the footsteps of the trusted companions of the Pres- 
ident." He had heard in higher places than the Senate the 
" shameless doctrine avowed by men gro\\ai old in public office 
that the true way in which power should be gained in the re- 
public is to bribe the people with the offices created for their 
ser\ace." He had heard from friendly lips at the time of the 
great Eastern Exposition that the only product of our institu- 
tions in which the United States excelled all other nations was 
corruption. This suspicion, this doctrine, this " friendlv " in- 
dictment related to the Kepublioans then occupying our public 
places, — the very men who constitute and make up this organi- 
zation of office-holders that now call upon the citizens of Berk- 
shire for the votes that are necessary to continue them in power. 
Not one word of denial ; not one word of palliation ; not one 
expression intimating doubt or disbelief fell at that time from 
the lips of Senator Hoar. He acquiesced in, and accepted, the 
impeachment. And the honorable senator sustains for the pres- 
idency the man who would foster, expand, and intensify this 
corruption by continuing to raise from the tax-i)ayers more 
than an hundred millions of dollars in excess of of our prodigid 
and profuse requirements, as a fund, additional to the offices, 
for bribing the people and i)erpetuating the power thus ac- 
quired. 

But not one sneer from Senator Hoar, and not one remon- 
strance from his brother Ebenezer, special claimants both of 
the purity of the Puritans, — of saints jiolitical, the most sainted, 
— not a sarcasm, not even a suggestion from either of them in 
rebuke of this monstrous, this abominable projwsition ! A i>etty 
tax on tea convidsed a contment in your fathers' times. Custom- 
house officers in those days were as busy in the ser>'ice of tlie 



22 Chapters for the Times. 

ministers as they are now ; but when they told the men of 1770 
that taxation was a good thing, and the more they had of it the 
better, the men of 1770 gave them a dip in the briny bay, or 
treated them occasionally to a coat of feathers and tar. They 
did not dig out creeks to establish ports of entry, or establish 
ports of entry to build custom-houses at a cost of from $50,000 
to six or seven millions of dollars, as expedients toward squan- 
dering the money levied by an insidious and iniquitous taxa- 
tion. 

The corruption described by Senator Hoar is the fruit of the 
Surplus policy advocated by Mr. Blaine ; and if it prevailed in 
1876, it has been growing worse ever since. Hence it is that 
with an expenditure of fovir hundred millions in sixteen years 
in the navy department, we have to-day no available ships or ar- 
maments. Hence it is that with one year's expenditure of three 
millions and a half in the department of justice, Attoi-ney-Gen- 
eral Brewster fails to convict Brady, Kellogg, or Dorsey ; and 
creates the impression in the public mind that the men whose 
footsteps " suspicion haunts," and the men who have " grown 
old in public service," will persistently extend an incidental pro- 
tection to culprits who know too many office-holders' secrets to 
be in any danger of conviction. Hence it is that with this enor- 
mous expenditure in the department of justice, we are told by 
the officers in the land department that the public domain is 
in process of unlawful appropriation, in large tracts, by land 
thieves, and that it is impossible to arrest or punish their depre- 
dations. Hence it is that we have for years seen a powerful 
corporation, born in fraud, engineered in fraud, and managed in 
fraud, successfully defying all the power of the government, — 
by its lobby outside and its feed attorneys inside of Congress 
staving oif remedial legislation, — and the attorney-general un- 
willing or unable to enforce even the provisions of those laws 
which Congress has succeeded in passing against the efforts of 
capital and corruption. Even the penny press of Rome has 
learned enough to fling its jibe at us, when it says that for 
every single brigand in the traditional costume that can be 
scared up in Italy, the United States can show a hundred in 
plain citizens' clothes. 

The Union Pacific Rail Road is not the only important body 
that evades or defies the laws of the United States. Taxes 



Orrjanizntion of Office-Hidderx. 23 

levied l\v imposts and duties arc not the only taxes levii-d in the 
Unitetl States, and Congress is not the only Ixuly to levy them. 
The National Rei)ul)lican C'onnnittee is another tax levier, and 
another defier of the law. First Mr. Jones, the chaiiiiian, 
issues from 244 Fifth Avenue, eity of New York, a cireular to 
all Kepublieans "//i or ont of office," in whieh the committee 
"cheerfully calls the attention of every person holdini^ any 
ofhee, place, or employment under the United States, or any of 
the departments of the government, to the provisions of the act 
of congress entitled an act to regulate and im])rove the civil 
service of the United States, ajjproved January IG, 1883, and 
states that its inffuence will be exerted in con form ifi/ tJicre- 
with." Shortly afterward, this announcement is followed l)y 
a cii'cular dated from No. 1142 New York Avenue, AN'ashing- 
ton, D. C, which abstains carefully from the statement that its 
influence wiU be exerted in conformity with the provisions of 
the act of congress. Five individuals, three of whom describe 
themselves as chairman, secretary, and treasurer, represent in 
this circular that they have been requested by the Republican 
National committee to act as a finance committee for the Dis- 
trict of Columbia in the collection of funds " to be used by the 
said national committee in the present political camj)air/n.^' 
To be " used " in the political campaign ! , For what purpose ? 
In the light shed upon " trusted companions " of our presidents, 
and of Republicans in "higher places" than the Senate, upon 
the practices as well as the doctrines of these men, to what use 
is this money to be applied? Can you doubt that the ol)ject of 
this fund is to buy votes ? And who are called ujion to furnish 
the money ? AVe all know that the only men in the District of 
Columbia to pay money for the " ca?npaifjn " of the ofiice-hold- 
ers are the men who hold office, place, or emi)loyment under the 
United States or some one of the departments of the govern- 
ment. It was for their protection, as well as for the honor of 
the country, that the act in question was passed. It is that act 
which these gentlemen inform us they intend to evade. A blue- 
covered campaign pamphlet in the interest of the Republican 
candidate commends highly the "audacity" of Rlaine as the 
conspicuous trait in his character. He has succeeded in impart- 
ing that audacity to A. M. Clai)p, chairman, Green B. Raum, 
treasurer, and W. H. Loudermilk, secretar}-, of this finance 



24 Chapters for the Times. 

committee that have fitted up their headquarters in Washing- 
ton, in the neighborhood of the departments, for the express 
purpose of violating the law of the United States, designed to 
protect clerks in the departments from this infamous imposi- 
tion of blackmail, while General Joe Hawley, at the ratification 
meeting in New York, " pointed with pride to the fact that 
there was an end to political assessments ! " 

In reply to some adverse comments on these chapters, I would 
simply say that if any one will point out a misstatement it will 
give me great pleasure to correct it. I would repeat that I am 
not a Democrat, and I have never voted for a Democratic Presi- 
dent. I am no office-holder or office-seeker. I have no interest 
whatever which is not in common with the interests of my 
brother farmers, and I have no desire under heaven but so to 
cast my vote that it may enure to the prosperity, liberty, and 
honor of my country. 

August 1, 1884. 



vn. 

Cleveland's nomination fokced by the people. 

The Issue is, Shall Reform or Jobbery Win ? — The Spoils and 

the Ring. 

In response to numerous letters from friends of the office- 
holders' organization, Judge Robinson has collected in a pam- 
phlet several very ingenious articles on the presidential question, 
intended to show why Blaine should be elected our chief magis- 
trate. Ilis task, though self-imposed, is a very difficult one. 
To prove that a man whom, in his judgment, the Republicans 
ought not to nominate, the people of the United States ought 
to elect, involves an enigma that puzzles plain men like myself, 
and that can be guessed at only by the few who are unusually 
clever in reading riddles and solving conundrums. If a man is 
so objectionable that he ought not even to be nominated, the 
only way, it seems, to correct the error is to elect liim. In po- 
litical geometry this is certainly the Pons Asinorum. 

It is to be regretted that Judge Robinson did not reprint, 
with the papers now before us, the able and conclusive article 



Cleveland's Nomination Forced by tin' J'eojile. 25 

in which he demoiistnited that Bhiiiio ought not to he nomi- 
nated. Its exchision from tiie series is very renuirkuble. The 
missing statue in the Komau })rocession excited more curiosity 
and comment than the statues which were paradeil. Fortu- 
nately the written word stanils. Before coming to the articles 
intended to show that Blaine ought to he elected, let us look at 
the fatal objections to his nomination distinctly formidated by 
Judge Kobinson before the meeting of the Chicago convention. 
Admitting Blaine to be " popular, magnetic, and brilliant," 
"accomplished, able, and i)utriotic," — whieh is pushing his 
case to the full extent, — admitting all this. Judge Kobinson 
alleged that the '•''fatal danrjer of his nomination remains the 
same, because it is known that the certain revolt of the Inde- 
pendents in New York would overwhehn him and the party in 
defeat. There is no doubt among intelligent and impartial men 
of the power of the independent voters. T/ie unparalleled de- 
feat of Secretary Folyer settles that question.^^ The dele- 
gates, he wrote, shoidd not be diverted from this consideration 
by " discussing the charges against Blaine." It is singular 
how strictly this kind of diversion is avoided by all Mr. Blaine's 
advocates. " It is sufficient to know," the Judge continued, 
" that his nomination woidd defeat and destroy the party^ 
'"''From any and all standpointx^^^ he added with a determina- 
tion that nobody should mismiderstand or misrepresent him, 
^''from any and all standjyoints, Blaine's nominatioyi would he 
a fatal andj irretrievable mistake.^^ Then leaving the indi\"id- 
ual and extending the range of his observations, after a discus- 
sion of President Arthur's claims to the nomination, lie general- 
izes the situation with the emphatic announcement, " no man of 
doubtful record or policy should be nominated.'' At the time, 
the remark was applicable and applied to Blaine. After lead- 
ing Carl Schurz's recent masterly speech at Brookl^^l, nobody 
can treat Mr. Blaine's record as a doubtful one. There is no 
longer any question about it. Xor can any man of intelligence 
read the letters of 1880 lately republished in the " Springtiehl 
Republican," from its correspondents at Augusta ami lioston, 
and hesitate as to the place to be assigned to Mr. Blaine as 
contractor, jobber, haunter of the departments, commissary, 
lobbyist, speculator, broker, magnetizer, galvanizer, and cori*up- 
tionist. 



26 Chapters for the Times. 

It is not ray mtention in presenting the issues of this presi- 
dential canvass to rely on any other authority than the docu- 
ments and the facts which they prove. I refer now to Mr. 
Schurz, because he has long been a familiar and trusted au- 
thority on matters of interest to the Republican party. Three 
generations of able, patriotic, truth-loving, and truth-telling 
men have established the " Springfield Republican " in the con- 
fidence of the people of Western Massachusetts. I feel assured 
that nothing would find admission to its columns on a public 
question which came from an unreliable or doubtful source. 
Hence it is that in the present connection I satisfy myself with 
citing the " Republican " and Mr. Schurz in confirmation of the 
case against Mr. Blaine, with the confident assertion that no 
impartial and intelligent voter can examine the speech and the 
letters in question, without arriving at the conclusion that Judge 
Robinson arrived at in regard to Mr. Blaine's nomination, that 
his election would be a " fatal and irretrievable mistake." 

So much of the Judge's pamphlet as relates to the question 
of party loyalty I have discussed in a previous chapter. In the 
aspect in which it is now presented, it is nothing under heaven 
but a question of fidelity to the organization of office-holders, 
engaged in a struggle for self-preservation. It is not necessary 
to repeat what I have already suggested in this regard. 

The most elaborate and perhaps the most able article in this 
series is that in which Judge Robinson arraigns the Democratic 
convention for the rules which it adopted for its own guidance. 
It seems that the unit rule gave Cleveland the nomination, and 
that rule is not approved by the Judge. Why ? One reason 
is that it is anti-Democratic. Would not one think that this 
might be a recommendation to the Judge, in view of his idea of 
Democracy ? The Democrats were not Democratic enough for 
him ! The adoption of the rule was a " shameful, anti-Demo- 
cratic, and revolting piece of machine despotism." Why, again? 
Because it disfranchises John Kelly and his strikers from the 
city of New York. The Democratic convention did not con- 
sider this a great calamity. They were pretty prompt in doing 
Mr. Kelly's business for him, without manifesting any reluc- 
tance whatever. The Judge asks if bolting Republicans can 
vote to sanction such boss methods and tyranny like this ? 
Now as long as the Democratic convention did precisely what 



ClevelancC s Nomination Forced hij the Peoph', 27 

the bolting liopnlilicau.s wantcil thein to do, is it rational to 
sui)po.se tluit tliey would quarrel with the process by whicii tho 
Democrats reached the result ? What is it to them that tho 
Democratic process is anti- Democratic ? Why should they 
figure as mourners at John Kelly's funeral? 

Now for the climax, with which I shall dismiss this i)art of 
the case. "Cleveland's nomination," says the Judjjfc, "is as 
pure a product of official patronage, ])ackt;d j)rimaries, boss 
despotism, and bastard reform, as our jxditics have ever fur- 
nished.' Let us look at this a moment. The leader of the 
Blaine men in the Republican Convention was the collector of 
customs in the city of New York, a man for whom Collector 
Merritt, against the united voice of the business men of the 
city, was displaced through the influence of Mr. Blaine. This 
collectorship has for half a century been considered the most 
important factor in a presidential contest, as far as the State of 
New York is concerned. John Quincy Adams writes in his 
diary, in 1840, "The long agony is over, and Edward Cui-tis 
is appointed collector of New York." This " long agony " 
is about all there was of President Harrison's administration. 
The contest was between Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster, which 
should get control of the New York Custom-I louse, and the 
contest was a bitter one, resulting in the triumph of the Secre- 
tary of State. The importance of this stronghold Mr. Blaine 
recognized, and he seized the o]iportunity of jilacing his man 
there in good season. He did not make any mistake about it, 
and when the Chicago convention assembled, " official jiation- 
age, packed primaries, boss despotism, and bastard reform " 
were so represented in the person of Mr. Blaine's Collector 
Robertson that the President rccjnant himself was to all intents 
nowhere in the fight for the Republican nomination. I do not 
think the Independent Repulilicans will distress themselves at 
the processes by which the Democratic convention readied their 
conclusions. But everyone who has watched what Mr. Decora- 
tion Dawes calls the " political currents " (I really owe an 
apology to the honorable senator for neglecting so long his 
speech at the ratification meeting of the office-holders in lios- 
ton) knows that Mr. Cleveland's nomination was simply the 
result of a popular sentiment in his favor too strong to be re- 
sisted. It was a concession of the Democratic party to the 



28 Chapters for the Times. 

American people. The " political currents " run unmistakably 
in the direction of reform, and we can only obtain reform by 
the agency of a reform President. And when Judge Robinson 
says that Blaine and Logan " represent the platform of the 
Chicago convention, loith the exception of the plank relating 
to the reform of the civil service,^' he defines distinctly and 
squarely the issue between reform in the person of Cleveland 
and jobbery in the person of Blaine. 

Another argument against voters exercising their independent 
judgment in casting their vote for the chief magistrate is, that 
the Democratic party " originated " the spoils system. This 
means that William L. Marcy, some fifty years ago, in the 
Senate of the United States, apropos to we forget what, in a 
crisp and sententious expression, crystallized the idea that to 
the " victors belong the spoils." That is all there is about the 
Democratic origin of the spoils system. But the Judge says 
further, that the Democrats advocate the sj)oils system. This is 
to say, that for twenty years they have held in theory a doctrine 
which the Republicans, during that period, have put in practice. 
This shows certainly that whatever opinions the Democrats hold 
they have held them honestly. " Where the carcass is, there 
will the vultures be gathered." The Democrats knew where 
the spoils were. If they were in pursuit of them, the way to 
get them was to bargain with the Republican ring. The Re- 
publican National Committee were ready to buy them, and to 
pay for them. They are ready to do it now. It is for this very 
purpose that, in audacious violation of the law, a committee is 
now sitting in Washington, under the shadow of the treasury 
department, to levy taxes on the employes of the government. 
Honest citizens ought to throw the whole material of the estab- 
lishment into the Potomac, and draw the personal out of Wash- 
ington at the cart's tail. 

But while the Democrats out in the cold have been theorizing 
on the spoils system, what have our Republican candidates been 
doing ? Let us begin with Mr. Blaine as a contractor in war 
times. He goes to the war department to offer his services to 
Mr. Cameron for furnishing guns. " Oh," says Mr. Cameron, 
^ you are a manufacturer of guns ? " " No," says Mr. Blaine. 
"In the hardware and cutlery line ? " says Mr, Cameron. "Not 
entirely," rejoins Mr. Blaine. " Well," the secretary must have 



Clevelanci 8 Nomination Forced by the J\'ijilc. 29 

asked, if lio did his duty, " what knowU-dj^^o havo you of tlua 
business that leads you to think your services will ho vahuihle 
to the government?" " Why, sir," says Mr. Blaine, risin<j^ to 
the oceasion, " I have been three yeai*s in the State of Kentucky 
'teaching- the young idea how to shoot.'" "Oh," says the 
secretary, " you are an expert, then, in firearms ? " " Just so," 
says Mr. Blaine, ^ I am an expert, and Kej)ublican Si)eaker 
of the" House of Kepresentatives in Maine."' Mr. Cauieron 
understands the situation, touches his gong, and tells the chief 
clerk to make a contract with Mr. Blaine for Spencer riHes. 

Now here is the point in this transaction. Mr. Blaine had 
no knowledge whatever of the business he wished to contract 
for, and enjoyed no special oj)portunities for makiug himself 
useful to the country. He simply came in as a middle-man, 
with important political influence, to stand between the jiro- 
ducer and the consumer, — the man who made the guns and 
the government which wanted to use them, — and to take the 
lion's share of the profits. He stood, brother farmers, in the 
same relation to the government as the man stands to you who 
buys your milk for two cents and a half, and sells it in New 
York for ten — well watered. Of course, our patriotic con- 
tractor bought as low as possible of the manufacturers, and 
sold as high as possible to the war department, and all that 
he received in the way of profit was so much money lost to 
the treasury, — but then he was Speaker of the House of 
Representatives in the State of Maine. This was the use of 
his political and official influence for personal advantage in 
a case where the only service he could possibly render the 
government was to take a very liberal conmiission out of it. 
I do not doubt Mr. Blaine's patriotism. There are several 
kinds of patriotism. This is Mr. Blaine's kind, — and he has 
kept up this reputation from the tinie of gun contracts down to 
the exliibition of the Mulligan correspondence. 

So much for the spoils system and the Democrats. For 
twenty years they have been wandering in the wihlerness with- 
out a chance at the flesh-pots, while Blaine lias been handling 
the spoils and enriching himself and his friends. And how b 
it with Logan? He defended l^resident Grant against the scath- 
ing attacks of Sumner on his nepotism, and averred that the 
man was a heathen who would not provide for his own house- 



30 Chapters for the Times. 

hold. And Logan by that token is no heathen, when the spoils 
are in question. Ecce Signum. 

Cornelius A. Logan, a cousin of John Alexander, Minister to ChUi. 

W. F. Tucker, Jr., a son-ia-law. Paymaster in the United States 
Ai*my. 

Jolm A. Logan, Jr., son, cadet at West Point. 

Jolui M. Cumiingham, brother-in-law. Second Lieutenant Nineteenth 
Infantry. 

Samuel S. Errett, brother-in-law. Assistant Superintendent Yellow- 
stone National Park. 

Cyrus Thomas, brother-in-law, ethnologist Smithsonian Institute. 

Viola Thomas, niece, daughter of Cyrus, clerk Smithsonian Institute. 

Susie Cunningham, sister-in-law, clerk m Treasury Department. 

Enoch Blancliard, nephew, clerk in the Railway Postal Service. 

MoUie E. Jenkins, niece, clerk in the Marine Hospital Service. 

James Cunningham, brother-in-law, Postmaster at Bhmingham, Ala. 

Samuel K. Cumiuigham, brother-in-law, Inspector Cliicago Custom 
House. 

James V. Logan, brother, postmaster, Murphysboro, lU. 

Edward Hill, nephew, Deputy United States Marshal, Southern 
District of Illinois. 

Mary H. Brady, former servant, clerk in Treasury Deparbnent. 

Louis Norrls, former servant, messenger in Interior Department, 
Washington. 

Daniel Shepherd, private secretary, Assistant Postmaster at Chicago. 

Beach Taylor, private secretary, clerk in the United States Senate. 

Who will say after reading this that Logan is a heathen? 
Does not it prove that he is as incapable of being a heathen as 
Blaine is of being a deadhead in any profitable government 
enterprise ? And when you compare the achievements in gath- 
ering the spoils manifested by these " decorated " (see Dawes 
on Decorations) candidates, is not it a little absurd to talk 
about the " spoils " of the Democrats, who have not had a crust 
from the treasury for twenty years? And don't you think, 
brother farmers, that you are bound to take off your coats and 
turn in and help these spoils-men, with Powell Clayton, Steishen 
"W. Dorsey, Secor Robeson, Bill Chandler, Stephen B. Elkins, 
John Koach, Schuyler Colfax, Brady, Kellogg, Keifer, and com- 
pany, as a cabinet council to distribute the placets, control the 
post-olifice, the custom-house, and all the departments, manage 



Clevehand" S Nomin,atioH Forced by the People. 31 

the expenditures of a most extravagant a<lnniiistration of the 
public service, with the nice little sum of a hunilrcd millions 
surplus to " Divide " in the most protitable manner that their 
ring- can devise ? More anon. 
August 10, 1884. 



CHAPTERS FOR THE TIMES. 

SECOND PART. 

BY A BERKSHIRE FARMER. 



VIII. 

OUT OF THE FRYING TAN INTO THE FIRE. 

The Result of Blaine's taking FoHy-four Millions of his Cownirymen 
into his Confidence. 

Shortly after the nomination of Mr. Blaine at Chicajro, 
there was a ratification mcetinp; at Washing;ton which was ad- 
dressed by Senator Frye, of Maine. The honorable senator 
then told his audience that in 187G the Democrats had an over- 
whelming majority in the House of Representatives, and that 
they deliberately determined to tear the laurels off the brow of 
the great Republican leadej* and make him bend low before the 
American people. Thereupon, as Mr. Frye stated it, one day 
Blaine went mto the House, and observing that he j)roposed to 
take into his confidence fifty [forty-four] millions of his coun- 
trymen, went on " without oratory, without ornamentation, and 
told his sto)'i/, and when he comjjleted the talc he charged upon 
the Democrats of the House, and routed tlicm, horse, foot, and 
dragoons." Mr. Frye wound uj> with a hissing hot peroration. 
" As Blaine," he said, " on the day of his magnificent jierform- 
ancc in the House, couched his lance and made an onset on the 
Democrats which they would remember forever, so he would 
now again couch his lance, and he and Logan, fighting shoiddcr 
to shoulder," would do very nmch the same thing that Blaine 
and Frye did in the House. 

Mr. Frye modestly omitted to refer to his own magnificent 
performance on that occasion. He might liave said, " All which 
I saw and part of which I was." He ought to have stated that 
he then played Sancho Panza to Mr. Blaine's Don Quixote ; and 



34 Chapters for the Times. 

that, more fortunate tlian the illustrious squire, he is in the 
actual enjoyment of the kingdom which his master promised 
him. We all remember the doughty knight-er rant's onset on 
the windmills, and his gallant cry, " Fly not, ye cowards and 
vile caitiffs, /or it is a single hnight who assaults you. . . . Al- 
though ye should have more arms than the giant Briareus, ye 
shall pay for it." He " set his lance in rest," and shattered it 
into shivers in the sail of the first windmill, with the magnifi- 
cent result of being tumbled heels over head on the field, so 
bruised and battered that his man Sancho had as much as he 
could do to pick up the pieces. Mr. Blaine's experience on the 
occasion referred to was more like that of Don Quixote in his 
bout with the windmill than that of a plumed knight routing 
his enemies. 

Let me tell the tale as the Congressional Debates tell it. 
Unscrupulous Republican journals do not hesitate to assure 
their readers that after a careful investigation of the charges 
against Blaine by an impartial congressional committee he was 
Ijroved not guilty^ and ivas honorahlg acquitted. This is a false- 
hood pure and unadorned. Senator Frye's rhodomontade may 
be styled the rhetorical or ornamented falsehood. In what fol- 
lows you may read the truth : — 

On the 31st of Januarj^ 1876, a resolution was offered in the 
House of Representatives by Mr. Luttrell, of California, in- 
structing the judiciary committee to inquire into and report 
upon the affairs of the Pacific railroads, which had received 
subsidies from the United States in land or money, with a view 
of ascertaining if these subsidies had been properly applied, and 
if any claims against the companies from non-feasance or. mal- 
feasance had accrued to the United States. The resolution was 
in terms broad enough to cover any and every transaction of the 
railroads down to the time of its adoption. A week previously 
a resolution had been adopted for the appointment of a special 
committee of five members, to inquire into the nature and his- 
tory of a real estate pool in which Jay Cooke & Co. were inter- 
ested. On the third day of April this special committee received 
additional powers from tlie House to investigate matters touch- 
ing alleged official misconduct of any officer of the government 
or any member of the House that might be brought to their at- 
tention. Rumors concerning alleged misdoings of the railroads 



Out of the Frji'inf) Pan into the Fire. 85 

were in ciiciiliition, which were supposed more or le>^ to iinpli- 
cate Mr. Blaine. On the 24th of April, Mr. Rhiinr thoiij^ht 
it judicious to meet one of these rumors by rising in the IIuukc 
to a personal explanation in icfc^renee to the alle<;^ed sale of cer- 
tain bonds of the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad to t\w 
Union Pacific. What he statml on that occasion is not perti- 
nent to my present purpose, but will receive due attention in a 
subsequent chapter. On the '2d of May the House adopted a 
resolution which contemj)lated an investigation by the judiciary 
committee of that speciiic transaction. 

In the course of this investigation two witnesses were sum- 
moned to whom only it is now necessary to refer, — Warren 
Fisher and James ^lulligan. On the evening of their arrival in 
Washington, Fisher and Mulligan were waited upon by Mr. 
Blaine before they had reported themselves to the conmiittee. 
Fisher went to Mr. Blaine's house on his invitation. Mulligan, 
however, declined, very properly, on the ground that he wished 
to take the stand on the following day "untrannuelcd by con- 
versation of any kind with anybody." Twice ]Mr. Blaine sent 
special messengers to induce Miilligan to accept his invitation. 
As this solicitation did not fetch him, Blaine and Fisher went 
in person to the Riggs House and there had an interview with 
Mulligan. Blaine requested and entreated Mulligan to deliver 
to him certain letters which he liad addressed to Warren Fisher, 
and which Mulligan had brought with him from Boston to cor- 
roborate any statement that he might have occasion to make to 
the committee. Fisher had given them to ]Mulligan for this j)ur- 
pose. Mulligan resisted Blaine's entreaties, though they were 
reinforced by tears, threats of suicide, and prottered bribes of 
political office or a foreign consulship, for which Mulligan told 
him he had no inclination. Blaine then said, " Let me see the 
letters to peruse them." I>laini> jiledged his honor that he woidd 
return them, and they were given to him to read. He read 
them once or twice and returned them. Mulligan took the let- 
ters and retired into his room. Blaine followed him, and aher 
Mulligan's positive refusal to deliver the letters, Blaine said, 
" I want to re-read those letters again, and I want to have them 
for that purpose." Mulligan, on the same pledge of honor, de- 
livered the letters to Blaine, and with them his own private 
memorandum of their contents. Blaine pocketed the letters 



36 Chapters for the Times. 

and the memorandum, and Mulligan's earnest and impassioned 
demand for their restoration Blaine met with an absolute re- 
fusal. 

The truth of this statement is not denied. Mulligan had the 
letters by right, and intended to use them, if it were necessary, 
to protect his own reputation, which he heard was to be assailed. 
If he held them wrongfully there was a lawful way for Blaine 
to get possession of them. But whether he held them by right 
or wrong is nothing to the purpose. Blaine pledged his honor 
for the possession of» them, and the thing pledged lies in Mul- 
ligan's keeping to this day. Mulligan will live and die the 
pawnee of the unredeemed honor of James G. Blaine. I treat 
this subject now without reference to the contents of the letters. 
We do not know their contents, and we never shall know them ; 
but we know enough of them. A man who is capable of taking 
and retaining a package of letters by a lie is capable of tamper- 
ing with such a package by suppression, substitution, or enlarge- 
ment of its contents. Under such circumstances every presump- 
tion of law is against the man guilty of the violence and false- 
hood. Even the audacious Mr. Blaine does not successfully in 
any respect impeach Mr. Mulligan's veracity. When he made 
his "magnificent performance" in the House chronicled by Mr. 
Frye, Mr. Blaine sneered at Mr. Mulligan as " that man," or 
" this man," or as the " famous witness." He averred that 
Mulligan had " selected, out of correspondence running over a 
great many years, letters which he thought would be peculiarly 
damaging to [him]." There is no truth in this averment. 
With a single exception, the letters were written between 1869 
and 1872, — most of them after 1870, — and most of these re- 
lated to the " little transaction," or " small flyer," in the North- 
ern Pacific, and to Blaine's relations with the Little Rock and 
Fort Smith Railroad. " He came here loaded vyith them^'' says 
Blaine. They were not many in number, but they were a heavy 
weight to carry, — particularly for the writer of them. " He 
came here for a sensation. He came here primed. He came 
here on tliat particular errand : I was advised of it, and I ob- 
tained those letters under circumstances which have been no- 
toriously scattered through the United States, and are known to 
everybody." 

Yes, Mr. Mulligan went to Washington summoned by a com- 



Out of the Fri/i)i;/ Pan into th>: Fire. 87 

mittoc of the House of Kopicsi'iitatives. Ho curried with liiin 
certiiiu doeiiments which on their face, as they were rrad hy Mr. 
JUaiiie himself, rehited to the subjeet-matter of their iiujuiry. 
Mr. Bhiiue obtained anil retained those doeunieuts by a false- 
hood which he bragged of as ])nl)licly known to everybody. No 
wonder that the "•Plumed Kuii^ht" confessed some sense of 
" humiliation " and a " mortilieation " that he did not i>retend 
to conceal, when of the letters thus filched from the honest 
accountant the very best he could say for himsrlf w;is, "• 1 am 
not afraid to show the letters. Thank (lod Almii^hty, I am 
not ashamed to show them." " Thei;e they are " ( liolding up 
a package of letters). But he did not show them ; he read 
them himself, and instead of sending them to the Speaker's 
desk he folded them up and put them in his pocket. Ami the 
opportunity of thus parading the spoils thus infamously won 
from an honest witness Mr. Blaine supplemented by an ini- 
called-for and unjustifiable attack ou the honor and good faith 
of the judiciary committee, as a question of " high privilege." 
As if Mr. Blaine were altogether superior to all ortlinary pro- 
cesses of jurisdiction, he introduced a resolution instructing the 
judiciary committee to '■'■ report forthwith to the House " whether 
or not they had sent a telegram to Josiah Caldwell, or had hear<l 
by telegram or otherwise from Josiah Caldwell, and to what 
effect, and why the telegram had been suppressed. Mr. Blaine 
asserted that it was now far into the fifth day since Mr. Knott, 
chairman of the judiciary connnittee, had received a telegram 
from Mr. Caldwell and had suppressed it, — as if every volunteer 
telegTam bearing on an individual or a case jK-nding before the 
judiciary committee should be at once circulated for the benefit 
of whom it might concern. The imputation was insulting and 
the claim of right in the last degi-ee absurd. ^Ir. Knott ex- 
pressed his belief that the telegram was a ])ut-up job, as it un- 
doubtedly was, and repelled the charge of sujipressing it with 
just indiguati(in. Mr. Blaine's resolution was referred to the 
judiciary connnittee. 

To complete the history of this " magnificent j>erformance " 
it is indispensable to mention Mr. Frye's ])art in it. Mr. Blaine 
was permitted to tell his story and read his letters without 
interruption, except an occasional remark interjected by his 
colleague, Mr. Frye, who was on the jud.iciary committee, act- 



38 Chapters for the Times. 

ing not as Mr. Blaine's " attorney " but as his " friend," and 
took occasion to ask a question when it would bring out a point 
for the defense. Mr. Hale, assisted by an occasional precon- 
certed inquiry or suggestion. When the chairman of the sub- 
committee undertook to reply to some of Mr. Blaine's imputa- 
tions, Mr. Frye interrupted him during his short si^eech just 
forty-four times, when Mr. Blaine took up the business and 
interrupted him twelve times more ; and in reply to Mr. 
Blaine's insinuation that the judiciary committee intended to do 
something to prevent his nomination at the presidential conven- 
tion then soon to meet at Cincinnati, Mr. Knott said that he 
would be pleased to see him nominated, adding, " If he [Blaine] 
should receive the nomination and be elected in the face of all 
the facts, all we can say is, May the Lord have mercy on the 
American people." 

Nothing came of this magnificent performance of Blaine and 
his bottle-holders. It was simply an exhibition of shameless and 
matcliless effrontery, — of impudence actually astomiding. It 
served, however, to put on the record Mr. Blaine's defense and 
the letters which made the defense necessary. Qui s' excuse 
s'acciise. 

Shortly afterwards came the historical sunstroke. 

The Cincinnati convention followed. The facts were fresh 
in the public mind, and the result of Mr. Blaine's grandilo- 
quently taking into his confidence forty-four millions of the 
American people was his loss of the Republican nomination. It 
was confidence singularly misplaced. 

August 20. 



IX. 

SPEAKER BLAINE AND HIS SPLENDID THING IN THE NORTH 

PACIFIC. 

An Open Letter to two Senators and an Ex-Governor. 

Gentlemen, — I should regret to believe that you arc, all 
and each, jointly and severally, engaged in an earnest, persist- 
ent, and utterly unscrupulous endeavor to demoralize the public 
sentiment of Massachusetts on questions of vital importance to 



Blaine and his Splendid Thinfi in the North Pacific. 89 

the Commonwoalth. Th()u<;h inulerstood to Ix', for the ln'st of 
reasons and for a long- surii-s (»f years, ojjposcd to tlio i-lcvution 
of James G. Blaine to the presidency, from interested and j)ar- 
tisan inducements you fust rtluetantly acquiesced in his nom- 
ination, and you are now ()i>cnly and enthusiastically in the 
field in his behalf, and from explanations and excuses liave 
warmed yourselves np to the language of eulogy and a<lula- 
tioxi. There is one apology for you. Pardcm mc if, without 
any disrespect to the profession, I remind my brother farmers 
that you are all — more or less — lawyers. From the time of 
your admission to the bar you have been in the habit of accept- 
ing retainers for arguing in any case indifferently for ])laintiff 
or defendant, and have always been ready to argue as warndy 
and sincerely for the one as for the other. You have been 
always ready for a professional consideration to 
" Give forked council, take provoking gold 
From either side." 

I do not say this to your personal disparagement. "NAHien a man 
calls upon you and puts up the fee, you are l)ound to give him 
the benefit of your best ability and yoiil' most sincere convic- 
tions, in placing such a construction on the facts and law of 
his case as will best subserve his interest. In the language of 
Mr. Blaine to his friend i isher, in doing so you would natur:dly 
"obey yoiu* first and best impulse." This is not discreditable; 
but pardon me again if I say that to us farmers it seems that a 
habit of this kind begets inevitably an utter indifference to the 
real merits of the controversy. You always go in to win ; and 
your client is always " stainless ; " the facts that ajipear to liis 
disadvantage are always " decorations ; " and if } ou can so twist 
the law and the facts as to secure a verdict and a judgment in 
his favor, you retire with an easy conscience, though you are 
certain that you have duped the jury and misled the court. 

These habits of thought and speech you bring with you into 
the discussion of pitblic questions, and they have led you into 
utterances entirely unworthy of you, and of which gentlemen 
not pi'ofessional advocates would have nuich reason ti> be 
ashamed. 

To these remarks I am led just now by a jierusal of the re- 
cent letter of ]\Ir. Senator Hoar, in reply to the Bnwtklyn sjieech 
of Mr. Carl Schurz. In this letter Mr. Hoar undertakes to 



40 Chapter's for the Times. 

narrov/ down the case against Mr. Blaine to the charge that 
he had a bad motive in his suggestions to Fisher, with the view 
of securing- from Caldwell an interest in the bed-rock of the 
Little Rock and Fort Smith Raih'oad. If these suggestions 
are capable of a creditable construction, Mr. Hoar says that 
there is an end of the case against Mr. Blaine ; for this is the 
whole of it. With an audacity which rivals that of his distin- 
guished client, the honorable senator avers to his dear young 
friend, whom he is endeavoring to train up in the way he should 
go, that " Mr. Blaine is not charged with any corrupt^ imjyroper 
or lorong act ichatever.''^ Mr. Hoar knows perfectly well that 
the Little Rock and Fort Smith business is but the beginning 
of the charges against Mr. Blaine, that it is but an item in the 
charges, and by no means the most important item, — one cir- 
cumstance only towards establishing the main charge, that Mr. 
Blaine has been from the start a jobber of his political interest 
and influence ; a lobbyist in the departments and in Congress, 
before and after he became a member of the lower House. The 
picturesque description given us by Senator Edmunds felici- 
tously embodies and illustrates the charges against Mr. Blaine. 
That description will survive ; and it will go down in history, 
that whenever Mr. Thurman and the senator from Vermont — 
Arcades amho — joined hands to defeat any of Jay Goidd's 
schemes for getting the better of the government, "James 
G. Blaine invariably started up from behind Gould's breast- 
works, musket in hand." 

Yes, and a Spencer rifle, at that ! But the Spencer-rifle case 
does not come on to-day, nor the Little Rock and Fort Smith, 
which I leave in the hands of Mr. Carl Schurz. 

My present purpose is to exhibit from the docmnents the re- 
lations of Mr. James G. Blaine to the Northern Pacific Rail- 
road. To these relations Mr. Schurz refers very casually, but 
in my judgment he will find in them, on some future occasion, 
matter well worthy of public attention. Let us review the facts 
as they appear in the Congressional Record. 

The act granting lands for the construction of a railroad and 
telegraph line from Lake Superior to Puget Sound — a railroad 
not yet completed — was signed by President Lincoln on the 2d 
of July, 1864. There were many well-known gentlemen among 
the beneficiaries named in the act, such as William E. Chandler, 



Blaine and Jus Splendid Tiling in the Xm-th Pacific. 41 

of New Ilair.psliiio, Jolm (In^ory Siiiltli, of Vt'iinont, I'Ivhhcs 
S. Grant, of Illinois, and notaldy Kii-lianl 1). Kicu, of Auj^iwta, 
Me., whose name heads the list, and who was a most oflit-ient 
and influential friend of the enterprise. The corporate title 
was the Northern Paeilic Kailroatl Company. 1'he eoinmis- 
siouers named in the aet ori;anized in the fall of 1804, and 
elected Josiah Perham })resi(lent of the orpuiization. In tiie 
year 18GG a resolution was passed by Congress, extend in <^ the 
time for building the road for two years. The passage of such 
resolutions, though a})parently a matter of course, always calls 
for a certain amount of influence and manipulation, and, I am 
sorry to say, a modicum of what the Kepublican humorists of 
the Blaine and Dorsey stamp arc accustomed to call soap. In 
18G8 another resolution, extending the time again, antl changing 
the charter in some respects, was called for, with more influ- 
ence, more manipulation, and more soap. In 18G9 a further 
resolution was necessary, authorizing the branch from Portland, 
Oregon, to Puget Sound, — an important resolution, with the 
usual influence, manipulation, and soap annexed. Mr. IMaine 
was at the time Speaker of the House of Representatives. Leg- 
islation with its accompaniments two years in succession, and 
as yet apparently no provision for the Speaker ! It was high 
time for the Speaker to come to the front. We And him on 
hand. During the summer following the passage of this resolu- 
tion, the Speaker spoke to his friend Fisher " about purehivsing 
an interest in the Northern Pacific Railroad for [himself] and 
any [he] might choose to associate with [himself]." The thing 
had then got into such a shape that the Si)eaker thought he 
coidd make a turn in it, i)erhaps in a quiet way through his 
neighbor Rice, of xVugusta. His friends, however, did not come 
up to the mark. Whatever was his prospect of handling an 
interest at the time, the agi-eement or understanding was not 
sufficiently distinct to be insisted upon. The Speaker's sad ex- 
perience on this occasion may have been the source of his anx- 
iety that Mr. Caldwell should make his '* proposition detinite " 
on the arrangement in the Little Rock business. 

"The matter passed by," wrote Mr. lilaine to his friend 
Fisher, " without my being able to control it, and nothing more 
was said about it." It was one of those cases, e\ndently, where 
the least said the soonest mended. 



42 Chapters for the Times. 

Mr. Blaine, however, was too " graceful and efficient " a 
Speaker to be left^ in an enterprise of this kind. Bottling np 
his resentment, he watched his opportunities. He did not have 
to wait long. In 1870 a very important resolution was acted 
upon by Congress, authorizing the Northern Pacific Railroad to 
issue its mortgage bonds and for other purposes ; and there was 
a very loud call, of course, for more influence, more manipula- 
tion, and more soap. On the 31st of May in that year the reso- 
lution was certified by Schuyler Colfax, President of the Senate, 
and James G. Blaine, Speaker of the House of Representatives, 
and approved by U. S. Grant, President of the United States. 
Since that time all these gentlemen have attained a very disrep- 
utable prominence in financial and speculative circles. 

The passage of this resolution was the turning-point in the 
history of the Northern Pacific Railroad. Before this time the 
original commissioners had failed in all their schemes for float- 
ing the enterprise, and had sold out their interests for $200,000 
or some other inconsiderable sum to J. Gregory Smith, R. D. 
Rice, William G. Moorhead, and their associates. One month 
afterwards, on the first day of July, 1870, an indenture was 
made between the Northern Pacific Railroad, of the first part, 
and Jay Cooke and John Edgar Thomson, of Philadelphia, 
trustees, of the second part, for the issue and the secmity of the 
bonds authorized by this important resolution. Meanwhile the 
interests in the road had been divided into twenty-four parts, 
twelve of which were assigned to Jay Cooke, to be used in push- 
ing his sale of the bonds and " for other j^urposes." The other 
twelve remained in the hands of Smith, Rice, Windom, Moor- 
head, and others, who recouped their expenses out of the first 
issue of bonds, and held their shares gratuitously as compensa- 
tion for their smartness and sagacity. They organized by ap- 
pointing themselves directors, and made J. Gregory Smith, of 
St. Albans, Vt., president, and R. D. Rice, of Augusta, Me., 
vice-president. From Augusta, Me., a few weeks after all this, 
Mr. Speaker Blaine writes to his friend Fisher that the " addi- 
tional legialation has been obtained ; " and, by a " strange revo- 
lution of circumstances," he adds, " I am again able to control 
an interest, and if you desire it you can have it." 

Rest here a moment and reflect on the charges necessarily 
involved in this mere statement of facts. Suppose that Mr. 



Blaine and his Splendid TIii7ig in the X^rin j'acijic. 43 

Speaker Blaine had never written or spoki-ii one word more on 
the subjeet, how would it staml ? In ISii'J he luul an interest ia 
the Northern Pacilie, or thou<;ht he luul, but lost eonti-ol of it. 
lu 1870 there was "additional le^slation" — Jana-s (J. P.laino 
in the Speaker's ehair, familiar with the ehannels in wiiich he 
could make himself useful, and the modes of brinjj;in'; his olH- 
eial serviees to the notice of parties in interest, .lay C(M)ke be- 
came fiuaneial agent of the company. It was again on its legs, 
and R. D. Rice, of Augusta, Mo., was its vice-president. James 
G. Blaine, of Augusta, Me., and Speaker of the House, by this 
" strange revolution of circumstances," regained control of the 
interest which he had previously lost. Is there any connection 
between this legislation and this control? Is there any connec- 
tion between Jay Cooke and this control ? Is there any connec- 
tion between Vice-President Rice, of Augusta, Me., and this 
conti'ol ? Cut off the whole matter here, and will Mr. Senator 
Hoar advise his dear young friend that these facts do not charge 
Mr. Blaine with anything "improper " or " wrong" ? Does he 
design or desire to corrupt the political morals of his dear young 
friend ? 

If Mr. Hoar sees nothing improper or wrong, Mr. Blaine has 
a clearer moi-al perception than the honorable senator. Let us 
resume the investigation. When, under the circumstances 
stated, Mr. Blaine reopens the negotiation with his fnend 
Fisher, what face does he put on the transaction ? He de- 
scribes the interest he controls with an unctuous exhibition of 
its possibilities. It was a matter of #425,000 of stock and 
275,000 acres of land, which he controlled, and the " whole 
thino' " could be had for •^^25,000, " less than one third of what 
some other sales of small interests have gone at." Now, wa-s it 
right and i)roper for a Speaker of the House who had taken 
part in this "additional legislation " to accejtt the " control " of 
this interest for one third of what other jieople were paying for 
similar interests, or to accept it at all ? ^Ir. Hoar thinks there 
is nothing corrupt, nothing even improper, in this 1 What did 
Mr. Blaine think of it at the time ? If it was an honorable 
transaction, why should Mr. Blaine have hesitated to t^dl his 
friend Fisher just what his "control" ain()unt<>d to, and how 
he got it? Why should he have said or written, " The chance 
is a very rare one. leant touch it, but I obey my first and 



44 Chapters for the Times. 

best impulse in offering it to you." "All such chances as 
this since Jay Cooke got the road have been accompanied with 
the obligation to take a large amount of the bonds at 90, and 
hold them not less than three years." "Of course, in conferring 
with others, keej) my name quiet^ mentioning it to no one but 
Mr. Caldwell." 

What did the Speaker offer to his friend Fisher ? An inter- 
est that he had acquired in the Northern Pacific Railroad. 
Why did he say that he could not touch it, when he v/as touch- 
ing it all the time ? One reason was to impress upon his friend 
Fisher that he had acquired this interest through his official 
influence, and that such a rare opportunity could not have oc- 
curred to a person less influential and important. This would 
seemingly enhance its value and account for the large estimate 
that the Speaker had put upon it. Then, again, it would nat- 
urally occur to Fisher, If this is such a splendid thing, why 
does not Blaine keep it himself? The objection was antici- 
pated, and Blaine meets it in advance. " I can't touch it " (in- 
nuendo) because it is by my official position only that I am able 
to acquire it. Hence this inexpensive and judicious parade of 
delicacy that must have amused Fisher very much indeed. 

" I can't touch it," says the \drtuous Mr. Blaine ; but he was 
evidently extremely anxious to get '125,000 for it for somebody. 
Was it for Jay Cooke or for Eichard D. Rice that he was 
" placing " these securities, or was it for James G. Blaine ? 
He was not above doing a brokerage business for a handsome 
commission. He could not " touch " it, but he could " control " 
it in the interest of anybody who could pay him 125,000. He 
could sell it, or buy it, or deliver it ; but he could not think of 
touching it. Mr. Blaine considered that improper. Fisher 
could have the whole thing for |25,000 ; but perhaps he would 
not care to invest so much himself. In that case he could bring 
in ten of his friends to take each a " small flyer," or five of 
them to liave a " splendid thing " of it, — a thing which even 
the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United 
States might consider and call absolutely splendid. But si)len- 
did as it was, and dog-cheap as it was, and rare as the chance 
was, the Speaker could not touch it, but could only negotiate 
the disposition of it with his friend Fisher, under the strict and 
significant injunction, "Keep my name quiet." Mr. Hoar is 



Blaine and his Splendid Thiwj in fhr Xo-tlt Parlfw. 45 

sure there is notlun_<T wroiii;- ahout this, and Mr. Dawes looks 
upon it as a " decoration." 

Does not all this show that, with a native delicacy more sen- 
sitive than that of Mr. Hoar, 'Siv. Blaine was eonscioiis that thin 
was a transaction in which it was disreputahle for him to l>o 
known, and which it was iiiqu-opcr and wroiiij^ for him to mid- 
dle with? As much as that we certainly have undn- lil-; own 
hand. 

Let us go a step farther. The next thing; wc fhid is iliat 
some arrangement was made for the disposition of this interest in 
some way or other by Fisher. Mr. Blaine received the 825,000 
he was in search of, hut whether it came from the sale of small 
flyers or the larger flyers, whether the interest was retailed or 
wholesaled, does not distinctly appear. All we know is that 
Mr. Blaine received $25,000 " in trust." He could not tourh 
the part, but he touched the money for it. Why in trust? In 
declarations of trust it may he said to be usual to name tho 
cestui qne trust. Here is a trust in the clouds. For whom 
did he hold this money in trust ? For himself ? For Mr. .lay 
Cooke, or Mr. R. D. Rice, or Mr. Fisher ? Or was it for Mr. 
Elisha Atkins, in whose name the certificates of the interest in 
the Northern Pacific were to be issued ? 

This sale by Blaine, and this trust money receipted for, seem 
to have been the source of considerable trouble as yet (juite un- 
explained. Less than a year afterwards, on the 24th of Octo- 
ber, 1871, Mr. Fisher wrote to Mr. Blaine urging a settlement 
of the Northern Pacific Railroad account of §'25,000. This 
letter, or a copy of it, was in the package which ^luUigan deliv- 
ered to Blaine, and was numbered eight in Mulligan's memoran- 
dum. This would probably have thrown some light on the mat- 
ter, but ]Mr. Blaine did not produce it. He said that it was not 
in the package. Its absence is much to be regretted ami diffi- 
cult to be explained. In tho February following, Mr. Fisher 
wi-ote twice to Blaine, telling him he woulil not receive the share, 
and demanding a return of the 825,000. Mr. Blaine wrote him 
that was impossible. He woidd deliver the interest, but ho 
would not pay back the money, falling back on his readiness to 
'■'- fulfill hi a memorandum,^'' ov to ^^makc a further hhIc if the 
shares in the Northern Pacific Railroady "Whether or not 
Blaine compelled Fisher to accept the specified interest, or Fisher 



46 Chapters for the Times. 

compelled Blaine to disgorge the money received " in trust," 
does not appear in the report of the proceedings and the debate 
in the House of Representatives. From other sources than the 
debate we learn of the final repayment of this trust money, but 
this will afford a subject of future consideration. 

In the face of these facts, established by public statutes, offi- 
cial documents, and Mr. Blaine's letters, proving beyond a doubt 
that Mr. Blaine received, or expected to receive, from Jay 
Cooke or from other representatives of the twenty-four parts, 
one eighth of one part ; that the transaction was of such a na- 
ture that he could not appear in it ; that the interest was of 
such a nature that he was obliged to get rid of it promptly for 
one third of what similar interests were alleged to be sellins: 
for, — in the face of all these facts, Mr. William Walter Phelps 
affects to discredit — what ? " The alleged connection of Mr. 
Blaine with a share in the Northern Pacific enterprise.'''' With 
an effrontery equal to that of his friend Blaine, he substantially 
denies that the Speaker ever had, in " any form whatever," 
the " remotest interest in the Northern Pacific company." That 
is the idea intended to be conveyed to the public. Is it true, or 
is it a downright and direct falsehood ? I do not answer this 
question, but I beg of Messrs. Dawes, Long, and Hoar to ex- 
plain it. 

August 30, 1884. 

POSTSCRIPT. 

In the foregoing letter I have stood upon the bed-rock and 
hard-pan of statutes and proved documents. 

Now, Mr. William Walter Phelps, what becomes of your 
statement that Mr. Blaine never had the remotest interest in 
any share in the Northern Pacific Railroad ? Had he the " con- 
trol " of this interest, or was he raising money on false pretenses ? 
I pause for Mr. Phelps's reply. 



A Bad Attack of Vij>er8, and the Rcmtilj. 47 

X. 

A BAD ATTACK OF VIPERS, AND THE REMEDY. 

Mr. I)((iress Decorations and Mr. Hoars Faneijijrlrs of Blaine. 

This chapter I shall devote to a few odds and ends that re- 
quire to be disposed of, before takin;^ up some more serious 
questions. I am under some uiidisehar<^ed oblii^^ations to Judge 
Robinson no less than to Senator Dawes, and I am in aneurs to 
Governor Long. 

In demonstrating why Mr. Blaine should be eleeted to the 
presidency, the most potent reasons exliibited by the Judge, on 
which I have not yet commented, are to be found in a renuirk- 
able string of vituperative epithets applied to tlu- leaders of the 
Democratic party and the Democratic party itself. It is pain- 
ful to reflect upon the opinion entertained by the Judge of more 
than one half the American i)eople. If the popidar majority, 
now indicated by a majority of seventy in the House, should 
happen to elect a President, it is clear tliat the Judge nuist lt>ok 
upon oiu" governmental experiment as a failure. lie believes in 
a government of the people, for the people, and l)y the i)eople, 
— but only when a majority of the people are of liis way of 
thinking. 

We are told by Judge Robinson tliat the election of a Demo- 
cratic President is the election of a Democratic Senate, a Demo- 
cratic House, and a Democratic Cabinet. He is wrong so far 
as the House and Senate are concerned, but he is riglit in re- 
gard to the Cabinet. On this point let us jiause a moment. 
The prpminent candidates for ]\Ir. Blaine's Cabinet will be the 
men who experienced epileptic fits over the plumed lu'lnict at 
Chicago ; and those of them who howled thi- loudest .will stand 
the best chance. Outside of that ring will be the most promi- 
nent of the Star Route thieves. Among them, bryond all (pies- 
tion, will be "my dear Dorsey," Stephen W. Dorsey, fornu-rly 
of Arkansas, and mixed up hke Blaine with the swindling land 
gi-ant railroads in that State. William E. Chandler an<l Seeor 
Robeson are cronies of Blaine not less conspicuous than Dorsey. 
I have a letter before me coming from the very highest author- 



48 Chapters for the Times. 

ity which shows that they would be just the men to help Blaine 
get rid of the surplus. " The so-called reconstruction of the 
four monitors," m}^ correspondent writes, "is the baldest rob- 
bery. Four millions will be wanted to complete the job, and 
the vessels will be worthless when finished." Vote for Blaine, 
and you '11 get the right man in the navy department to spend 
your money without giving you any more navy than you have 
now, after an expenditure of four hundred millions. 

Stephen B. Elkins and Benjamin Franklin Jones, the finan- 
ciers for Blaine, who are engaged in levying illegal contribu- 
tions on reluctant federal office-holders, and procuring subscrib- 
ers for a comic newspaper, by which they hope to laugh Blaine 
into the presidency, — one or the other of them, for they are 
both millionaires, will probably be Blaine's Secretary of the 
Treasury, unless that place is already promised to General But- 
ler. Then Brady would be the most eligible man for Post- 
master-General, or William Pitt Kellogg, or possibly William 
H. Kemble, the eminent Pennsylvanian Republican, might be 
propitiated by a cabinet office, and " stay bought." Mr. Dec- 
oration Dawes is rapidl}^ qualifying for a seat among these 
worthies, by his unremitting efforts by speech and by telegram 
to debauch the public sentiment of Massachusetts and to lower 
the standard by which her people have hitherto measured their 
public men. And if there is any virtue in the grossest flattery 
and the most \ailgar adulation, even Georsre Frisbie Hoar mioht 
raise himself to the level of the baser followers of the Plumed 
Knight, and justly feel that he had entitled himself to a Cabi- 
net appointment from the slanderer of his native Common- 
wealth. 

Now, as far as the public welfare is concerned, would the 
Commonwealth suffer any detriment if, instead of a ring com- 
posed of such materials, we should have such a Cabinet of Dem- 
ocratic statesmen as an honorable and honest public servant 
like Grover Cleveland would undoubtedly select for us ? AVhat 
great calamity would befall the country if we should see 
Thomas F. Bayard in the State Department, Samuel J. Randall 
or Senator Edmunds's friend Allen G. Thurman in the Treas- 
ury, Abraham S. Hewitt, William S. Holman, Joseph E. 
McDonald, William C. Endieott, or Mayor Prince in the other 
departments ? There is only one Robinsonian answer to this : 



A Bad Attach of Vipers^ ami tlw Jli'im <lij. 40 

The Star Route thii'ves arc Iu]mblic':ui.s — tluTiftin' all saints. 
The stati'snu'U are Demoerats — ^ therefore all dt vils. 

Let us consider the Judge's arjj^uments. '* \'ipci*s of treitson, 
disloyal, fanatics of free trade, copperheads, n-pudiatioii and 
ruin, curse and terror, black with devotion to slavery, eonsj)iru- 
tors against liberty, relentless opponents of free ballot and free 
count. Climes against the ballot box. Southern oligarchy, dark 
and damning treason, bloody overthrow, lights and hates the 
civil service, plunder politics, notorious fraud, ])r;ictlces the 
spoils system, constant cons])iracy, constant crime, hypocrisy 
and depravity, vilest nest of vi})ers," — et cetera ! et cetera ! 

Hold on a moment. These epithets end)ody the idea that a 
man who counts liimseK as one of one half of the American 
people entertains of the other half. Is there any reason or good 
sense in this? 

Prescribing for other people i-; something I do not undertake. 
But for myself I can say that if I ever have an acute attai-k of 
such venomous parts of speech I shall immediately tak(; to my 
bed and recpiest my friends to teleplione for Dr. Ilolcondie or 
Dr. Greenleaf, with instructions that I should be bolused, blis- 
tered, and bled to their heart's content, and even then I should 
not expect to be out in season to vote at the next presidi'utiid 
election. Nor should I expect to vote at aU, except on a favoi- 
able retiu-n to a writ de lunatiro inquircndo. 

Tliis does not leave me much space for Senator Dawes, but I 
do not require much for a gentleman who pronounces the unre- 
buked slanderer of Massachusetts, the official jobber, the self- 
convicted pa^vner of his veracity and honor, a " staink'ss " man, 
only " decorated" by the proofs of his venality and corrui)tion. 
Senator Dawes laid himself out at the ratificatimi meeting in 
Boston. He there advocated Blaine's election because the Re- 
publican party had twenty-five years of achievement hchind it. 
What do we care for what a party has hchind it. We want to 
know what a party has in it, (iround it, and htfurv it ; ami 
when we see prominent in it, and engaged in running it, water 
thieves, land thieves, post-office thieves, jol)bers, lobbyists, and 
corruptiouists, what nonsense it is to talk about wluif i> lilitiid 
it, be it a whole century of great achievements ! 

Then Senator Dawes had a g.)od deal to say alnmt the mar- 
velous manifestation of the irresistible i)()wer of political currents 
4 



50 Chapters for the Times. 

ill a nation of fifty millions of freemen. I am quite at a loss 
to undei-stand how he applies this rather grandiloquent and 
rhetorical observation. It reads to me like a sentence cut out 
of one of his sophomore forensics, and rather rubbishy for a 
sophomore. There is something also about "intense American- 
ism," and " political currents " figure again as bearing on their 
"bosom" the "future grandeur or humiliation of the repub- 
lic." This last I do not comprehend, unless it is an allusion 
to the Mulligan letters, which Mr. Blaine very properly said he 
could not read without " humiliation." The " intense Ameri- 
canism " idea seems to have been quite eliminated from the can- 
vass — as a Republican peculiarity. Our Democratic brethren 
assert a louder clain to it, and the managers of the Blaine can- 
vass drop it in their solicitude to get up a comic newspaper 
where it would not cut any figure at all. " The coming strug- 
gle for a more pronounced American policy " is merged in 
the coming struggle on the question whether we shall have an 
honest man or a jobber for our President. Anything more in- 
tensely American than the war with England and the war with 
Mexico, and the acquisition of Louisiana, the Floridas, and Cali- 
fornia, can hardly be desirable. 

I will not be unjust to the honorable senator. If lie is not an 
orator and a rhetorician he is nothing and nowhere, so I will 
pick out a plum or two from a pie which Johnnie Horner might 
have plumed himself upon. " Let us," said Mr. Dawes, " lift 
the discipline of the campaign to the level of the great issues and 
stake, and not stop to pick up bird-seed by indifference to the 
forces which are pushing the republic on to its destiu}'." Read 
this, brother farmers, and tell me what on earth the orator 
means. What idea do you get from " lifting the discipline of 
the campaign " ? Does this refer to the " discipline " that 
Elkius and Jones are establishing in the matter of the bri- 
bery fund among the office-holders at Washington ? And the 
" stake " ? Is that the heritage of the office-holders, and the 
hundred million surplus that Mr. Blaine would continue to raise 
for the vultures and harpies \vho fasten on it ? " Pick up bird- 
seed by indifference," — what can this mean ? Brother farmers, 
are you going to take your opinions on the say-so of a man who 
is capable of stirring up such a muddle of nonsense as this, as 
an argument to induce thinking men to vote for a jobber like 



A Bad Attack of ]'ij)ers, and tlw A'. ,„../.,. .',i 

Blaine? Kuad the dot'umcnts. Study tlioui for yoursclvrs. Wo 
are just as c'oiui)etc'ut to form a judguu-nt on them as Mr. Dawt'S. 
If you think a man is " deeoruted " by dishonor, vote jw Mr. 
Dawes tells you. If you think a man is " decorateil " hy obtain- 
ing " control " of an interest in a railroad unch-r cirenmstanoes 
in which he cannot touch it, and under eireumstanees in which 
he cannot permit his name to appear, and ])nts ofT that intere.:t 
on his friends under eireumstanees whieli authorize them to de- 
mand and obtidn the return of the money, — if you think as Mr. 
Dawes does, that such a " little transaction in Boston " is a " doc- 
oration," by all means vote as ]Mr. Dawes tells you to vote. If 
you think a i)ublic man " decorated " by taking ten ncighV)ors 
into his confidence and putting off upon them wildcat raihoad 
securities under circumstances which give those neigh bc^rs a 
"moral claim" upon the broker for a return of the money, 
vote by all means with the men who are of the same opinion. 
If you think a man " decorated " by sharp practices, vote for 
Mr. Blaine. If you think a man "decorated" by venality, vote 
for Mr. Blaine. If you think a man " decorated " by corruption, 
vote for Mr. Blaine. Vote as Mr. Dawes and Mr. Hoar tell 
you to vote. But if you do not think so, and are not prepared 
to accept the opinions of '" our best men," as their friends some- 
times call the honorable senators (as if they were any better 
than we are), in the place of your own judgment and your own 
convictions, I repeat my injunction : Bead the documents and 
decide for yourselves. 

Kow for the ex-governor. Lawyer Long read tlu^ evidi'uce 
formerly and entertained a very decided opinion that Mr. IMaiue 
was guilty as charged in the indictment. After Mr. Blaine's 
nomination at Chieago, Lawyer Long looked over the evidence 
again and thought the charges were not proven. This result 
was brought about by what Mr. Blaine would call a " strange 
revolution of circumstances." 

It may be well, brother farmers, to remember, in estimating 
the value of their advice, that Messrs. Hoar, Dawes, juid Long 
are all lawyers and all office-holders. 

September 2. 



52 Chapters for the Times. 

XI. 

A HOST CF LAWYERS RETAINED FOR THE DEFENSE. 

The 3Iulligan Literature and the Northern Pacific. 

Another law3'er in the field, but this time not an office- 
holder ! Another counsel for the defendant on hand, by elabo- 
rate sophistry and ingenious dimmutiou to whittle away the 
presentment of the Grand Inquest of the Nation ! To Dawes, 
Long, Lodge, Hoar, and Robinson we have now to add the name 
of R. M. Morse, Jr., president of the rec^ent Republican State 
Convention. Six special attorneys for the man in the dock, but, 
thank God, I have not yet heard of a single tiller of the soil who 
has come forward and said to his fellow citizens of Massachu- 
setts that James G. Blaine, as a candidate for the presidency, 
rises to the standard of her traditions, her character, and her 
requirements. I have not yet heard one farmer assert that the 
election of James G. Blaine to the presidency, in the face of 
admitted and undenied facts, would be otherwise than a great 
calamity for the American people. 

In a previous chapter I have anticipated Mr. Morse's bold 
statement in regard to Mr. Blaine's "alleged" connection with 
the North Pacific Railroad. On behalf of his client. Counselor 
Morse says that the '•'-only tiling'" the Mulligan letters show in 
regard to the mysterious block of North Pacific is that Mr. 
Blaine " determined that he could not take it, and that he did 
not take it." They show no such thing, but they prove dis- 
tinctly that IVIr. Blaine was determined to get $25,000 for the 
block, and that he did get it. They show that for some reason 
or other Fisher was dunning him for two years to refund that 
$25,000, whether for a failure of consideration or misrepre- 
sentation as to the value of the block does not appear. They 
show that in some way or other Fisher had got the Plumed 
Knight in an uncommonly tight place, in this regard, and the 
correspondence leaves him there, with $25,000 in his jjocket, 
" in trust " for the Lord knows whom. 

The money was paid to Blaine "in trust" in November, 1870. 
It is stated, but not in the cori'cspondcnce, that Fisher finally 



A Host of Lawijerx Ji.tained f<>r thr Di-J'cn»r. o.'} 

suceeodod in procuring^ a itturn of the trust money in tho fall 
of 1872. 

In view of ;ill the ciicunistunces, it would, indeed, be strunj^o 
if the Mulligan letters did not possess the threat |>id)lic interest 
whieh Mr. Morse very justly attributes to tlu'Ui. On this jMiint 
I will give counsel for the defense the benefit of his .statement 
in his own words : — 

" But the assailants of Mr. Jilalne fall back upon tlie * Miilli;,':iii 
letters.' How they revel in those letters ! Mow they ])rint tlicni and 
rei)rint them ! How they read them aii<l read tliem over again ! 
Surely no correspondence was ever so carefully studied. These schol- 
ars and statesmen forget for the moment the classic letters of Cicero and 
of Webster, these youths care no more for the love songs of Petrarch 
to his LaiU'a ; all are alike absorbed in constant, steady, and intense 
pei'usal of the ' Mulligan letters.' Here, it is claimed, is full confes- 
sion, if not of any specific act of corruption, yet of dishonest purpose 
or habit of mind. But with all deference to those whose judgment 
leads them honestly to that conclusion, I deny emphatically that such 
is the fair and reasonable interpretation of those letters. I cannot 
imdertake here to analyze this correspondence." 

Admitting that this correspondence could not have been ju- 
diciously analyzed on this occasion, I think Mr. ^lorse is entirely 
right ill this view of the Mulligan letters. It shows that Mr. 
Morse is well aware of what the people are thinking about, and 
feels that they are in search of the right material for reflection. 
These letters are read and are carrying reading })eople to just 
conclusions in regard to their author. On the other hand, the 
special campaign literature of the Republicans seems to be quite 
neglected. The Republican Congi-essional Coniniittee, for in- 
stance, have printed twenty-one campaign ])ampldt'ts, eighteen 
of them trashy speeches or letters of mend)ers of Congress on 
the tariff, which nobody will read, and which the committee 
are trying to peddle round at from forty cents to a dollar a hun- 
dred, — and no buyers. The American people have no ai)prc- 
hension that the country is in any danger from the inability of 
capital to take care of itself. They kn.ow that capital buys up 
state legislatures, and attorneys, general as well as sj>ccial, and 
courts of justice, and government departments, and tho cynical 
and malicious go so far as to say that the members of neither 
House of Congress are wholly inaccessible to its blandishments. 



54 Chapters for the Times. 

We all know that with the luillionaires and lesser capitalists in 
the two Houses, and the potent influences that can be brought to 
bear on the impecunious, there is just about as much chance for 
the breaking out of the millennium as there is for any encroach- 
ment by either party on the real or supposed interests of capital, 
whether involved in the tariff policy or any other policy. The 
most that can be done by a Democratic majority is to apply 
the knife to the cancerous surplus that is corrupting the body 
politic, and the sooner that is done the better. 

Little wonder that there is no market for the long-winded 
themes and forensics on the tariff, that have been, presumably, 
written for the members by their clerks, and have been already 
circulated at the public expense in Congressional Debates. But 
the Mulligan letters are quite another thing. They always 
pique and sometimes gratify curiosity. The annals of the world 
do not exhibit such a collection. It is entirely and absolutely 
unique. Why should not we forget for the moment the classic 
letters of Cicero and Webster ? To what contemporary Piscator 
did the great Roman orator ever address himself in a vein so 
interesting ? In what letters of Webster, or of any other Amer- 
ican statesman, can we find such labyrinths of occult circum- 
stances, such appeals for mysterious settlements, such disavowals 
of obviously corrupt interests, such familiarity with " small 
flyers " and splendid chances " and what the " whole thing could 
be had for," such intimate knowledge of how lobbies had " things 
set up," such dunnings for the return of money receipted for 
"in trust," — such proofs, in short, that the man whom Mr. 
Phelps represents as so entirely " absorbed in public affairs " as 
to require a financial guardian was a man who never lost a 
chance to use his political and official influence for the acquire- 
ment of money, from the time he undertook, by methods with 
which all Pennsylvanian politicians were familiar, to infuse 
Simon Cameron with an enthusiasm for Spencer rifles down to 
the moment when he " couched his lance " at the Democratic 
hordes, iind landed himself in the convenient asylum of a sun- 
stroke. 

Then there never were letters since the world was made that 
have produced such different impressions on the same indi- 
viduals at different periods. Governor Long and Senator Hoar 
have been for years in the habit of regarding them as very 



A Ifosf of Lawi/cm li, tainrd for (h. //,/, nse. !").') 

nan_t;lity. Even Si'iiatoi* Dawes for a Idii;; timo did not (-(m- 
sitlci- them as peculiarly "decorative." It is said, indeed, that 
when Blaine uttered his malicious invective against Ma-ssachu- 
setts, tht)Ui;h Dawos and Hoar did not say nuich jiuhlirly in 
rebuke of the slanderer, they did give out in an undertone 
that it was not much matter what such a man niight say against 
Massachusetts; Massachusetts could stand it. Even ])artisan 
editors of the most pronounced Kepublican stamp entertained 
no doubt as to the purport and effect of these letters when they 
were first published. The "Xi'w York Trilmne," the "Chicago 
Tribune," the "Cincinnati Commercial, ' and the "Cincinnati 
Gazette " considered the letters " dark, stubborn, and destructive 
facts,'' not to be "sponged out." The "Cinciiujati (Jazctte" 
said on the 10th of June, 18TG : "No man can successfidly 
stand before the people of the country as the Republican can- 
didate for the presidency, covered all over as Blaine is with his 
own letters." Now, with Dawes, the " Gazette " considers them 
decorations. Senator Hoar does not go quite so fai*. He rather 
inclines to the opinion that they come under the head of warts 
or wrinkles. 

Mr. Morse suggests that the dudes even have given up the 
sonnets of Petraix'h to his Laura, in exchange for the Midligan 
letters. Why not ? Is there any comparison in present intci-est 
between the sonnets of the Italian to his mistress and the let- 
ters of Petrarch Blaine to Laura Fisher ? When Petrarch had 
a "splendid thing," was not it always his "first and best im- 
pulse " to offer it to his Laura? If you desire emotional writ- 
ing, gush of sentiment, depth of pathos, bursts of gratitude, sly 
allusions, picturesque attitudes, slcillful ballooning, ])regnant in- 
sinuations, — are they not all to be found in that memorable 
package which Blaine was not " afraid " an<l was not " ashamed " 
to show to forty-four millions of liis countrymen, though he but- 
toned it up in his breast pocket as if this " courageous and liigh- 
spirited gentleman " was really very much asliamed and vi'ry 
much alarmed? 

While I am writing this I receive the " New York Times," 
containing a letter of Mr. George Bliss, in reply to a h>tter of 
mine to Mr. Morse, in regard to his assertions in the matter of 
the North Pacific, or the "little transaction in Boston" that 
never became a transaction at all. What Mr. Bliss has to do 



66 Chapters for the Times. 

with Mr. Morse's correspondence I cannot imagine. He is the 
seventh lawyer who appears as counsel for the defendant in this 
Massachusetts jurisdiction. Mr. Bliss is the gentleman who re- 
ceived from the surplus an hundred dollars a day for many 
months, for teaching us hoAV not to convict Brady, Dorsey, and 
Kellogg. He is the same gentleman who suggested to Attor- 
ney-General Brewster a consultation with Bill Chandler as to 
the political effect of the probable testimony of a particular 
witness before putting him on the stand. If he has as good 
luck in defending Blaine as he had in convicting Dorsey, per- 
hajis he will be Mr. Brewster's successor. 
September 9. 



XII. 

WHITEWASHING, PAINTING, AND GILDING 
BY EMINENT HANDS. 

The Bar and the Press. 

These chapters have been addressed to the farmers of Massa- 
chusetts without distinction of party. I have lived long enough 
to know that in the philosophy of proverbs there is nothing 
truer than that party is the madness of the many for the eleva- 
tion, enrichment, and aggrandizement of the few. I believe 
that the salvation of our institutions rests in the hands of men 
engaged in the pursuits of agriculture, the men who are always 
honestly adding something to our wealth and prosperity. From 
their labor comes by far the largest addition to the created cap- 
ital of the country. Out of what they raise comes the transpor- 
tation that gives value to the railroads. Out of what they raise 
comes the traffic that creates oil kings, and wheat kings, and 
cotton kings, and pork kings, and the army of buyers and sell- 
ers in the marts of commerce and the stock exchanges of our 
great cities. Out of the earth and the sea comes the sur})lns. 

The tillers of the soil and the toilers on the sea — the farm- 
ers, the miners, and the fishermen — produce the hundreds of 
millions of dollars that are annually raised from the American 
people by iniquitous taxation. From them comes the one hun- 



Whiti'ivashitiij, Pitlntinfi, and (7il<f^n'/. 57 

(Ired millions of siirpUis, niiscd that (lu- iiioinU of tin- jicoplu 
may be cornii)t(.'(l, and tliat our prt'sidcntial clcctidii may <l(';;t'n- 
erate into a struggle in wliiili cnstomdiouse ottiecrs, toilcctoi-s of 
internal revenue, ]»(tstmasters. eontractors, joMiers, land thieves 
and water thieves, ami eonspicuously Star lu»ute thieves, eoiue 
to the front, — make the nominations, organize the eommittees, 
organize the otTieediolders, levy unlawful assessments on the 
timid and reluetant subordinates in 2)ul>lie serviee, and prejjare 
the way for the earnival of spoils and phnuh-r that they look 
forward to under the auspices of Blaine. 

The worst feature in this eanvass, said a j)rominent Kepuhli- 
can to me the other day, is the attempt of sueh men as Dawes 
and Hoar to make light of the facts proved by the Mulligan let- 
ters. " I am a Kepubliean, and shall vote for their eandidate," 
he said, " because I hate the Democrats, not because I love 
Blaine. I am a party man, and would vote for the Devil if he 
managed by hook or crook to get the nomination. I will not 
disgrace myself, however, by saying that these charges decollate 
Mr. Blaine, or that he is an unspotted candidate, as Dawes and 
Hoar insist. It does Blaine no good and is calculated to lower 
the standard of ])ublic morals." But my Kepubliean friend tlid 
not admit that his own standard of political morals was consid- 
erably lowered when he declared that he must draw the line 
somewhere, and drew it the wrong side of Satan. 

One of the most striking circumstances of this canvass is the 
comparison it inevitably provokes between the honoralde inde- 
pendence of the press and the disreputable partisan advocacy of 
the bar. Before the meeting of the convention, Mr. AN'illiam 
Walter Phei])s appeared as the volunteer attorney for his client 
Mr. Blaine. He aspired to do an effective job of whitewash 
ing. He went through every count of the indictment against 
Mr. Blaiue, and claimed to have disposed of them all hi his 
favor. More than an attorney, he assumed to be the nearest 
friend of the illustrious candidate, and was prepared to vouch 
not only for all his actions, but for all his thoughts and asjiira- 
tions. He told iMr. Blaine's story, not as h.is representative 
merely, but as himself. He denied, he ex})lai:u'd, he asserted. 
as by authority. Mr. Phelps's defense only confirmed the pre- 
vailing opinion of his client's guilt, and that impression was 
particularly pronounced in the State of Massachusetts. The 



68 Chapters for the Tiynes. 

delegates to the Republican convention from this State were 
unaninions in the opinion that the charges were not disproved 
by Mr. Phelps. They protested that Mr. Phelps had made out 
no case ; that in any event Blaine's record was a doubtful one, 
and to nominate him for the presidency, even under Mr. Phelps's 
coat of whitewash, would be to invite inevitable and deserved 
defeat. 

But when our delegates returned from Chicago swearing that 
Mr. Blaine was too black for any Mr. Phelps to whitewash, they 
concluded that those of them who were office-holders and those 
of them v/lio desired to become office-holders — whether for the 
honors or profits — must stick to the organization and go in 
strong, even if the nominee vx(» Beelzebub. Then they devised 
the plan of supplementing Mr. Phelps's whitewash with a coat of 
paint, and, of all people in the world, who should they get but 
the great moral painter of the Commonwealth to lay it on with 
a trowel. Senator Hoar contracted to paint out all the " warts 
and wrinkles," and to make Mr. Blaine (skin-deep) as present- 
able as any man in the country. He beat all to pieces Senator 
Frye's dazzling picture of the Plumed Knight couching his lance 
at poor Mulligan. He painted Blaine in all sorts of scenes and 
attitudes, omitting alw9.ys that memorable field in which the 
Plumed Knight unhorsed two distinguished warriors who wielded 
the battle-axes of Massachusetts. But the painting, — first in 
water colors and afterwards in oils, — though it helloed the 
whitewash, was not entirely satisfactory. Something more 
was called for, and brother Dawes — a most competent artist in 
that line — was employed to do a job of gilding, and did he not 
" decorate " his subject ? After this whitewashing, painting, 
and gilding by these three eminent masters, Messrs. Lodge, 
Long, Morse, Governor Robinson, and George Bliss were brought 
forward to frame and glass him and exhibit him to a confiding 
public, in such a style that his most intimate friends, even Fisher 
and Caldwell, would never know him. 

In a former chapter I have alluded to the struggle of the re- 
formers against the office-holders in 1840. This Conservative 
bolt from the Democratic party corresponded with the Indepen- 
dent bolt from the Republican party in 1884. At tliat time a 
considerable number of gentlemen, who held office by popular or 
by legislative election, separated themselves from the Democratic 



Wldteivashing^ Paint ing, and GUdinij. I','^ 

prirtA\ and opposed its presidential candidati>. This wm tin (•as<j 
espei'ially in N'irginia, New Voik, and Peinisylvania. Hut tho 
Democratic press at that time followed the lead of the ofHeo- 
holders proper. There was a fcchle ])rotest from a journal in 
the city of New York, started in the interest and thr<»ut,'h tho 
influence of Senator Tallmadj^e. There was another journal at 
Nashville that joined the bolt, and the editor of it had to po 
abont with pistols in his pockets to protect himself a;j^ainst his 
old political associates and friends. The journals in (piestion 
bolted before the renomination of Van Buren, and stuck to their 
bolt, but their circidation was small and their power limited. 
They were hardly a factor in the contest, which was mainly car- 
ried on by speech in the immense popular gatherinj:;s that were 
rallied against the office-holders and the defaulters, while the Ke- 
publican bolters of 1884 have a jiress in their own jiarty that is 
of incalculable significance and influence in the fight against the 
candidate of the office-holders and the Star Konte thieves. 

It is entirely \\'ithout precedent in our histoiy, or in the his- 
tory of any other people, that the leading journals of a party 
should oppose its candidate for the highest office, on the gi'ound 
that he had been gtailty of making money during his ]>nblic 
career by the abuse of his political and official opportunities. 
When has such a charge been brought against Pitt, or Peel, or 
Gladstone, or Derby, or Disraeli, or any P^nglish minister? 
What public man of the Unitetl States has ever been susjiected 
of such an offense against political morality ? The people re- 
luctantly pardoned a single corrupt act in the case of one Ke- 
jniblican President, but Lot Idorrill spoke with the voice of a 
prophet when he said in 1880 that the Eepublican President 
would be elected that time, '' but unless new methods are used 
in the party and better men become its leaders he will l>c tho 
last one elected." Its best leaders are falling away from it, — 
Speed, and Schurz, and Bristow, and Curtis, and Conkling, and 
Codman, — all opposed to Blaine, and most of tiicm in active 
opposition, while there come to the rescue Dorsey, Elkins, Clay- 
ton, Brady, Kellogg, Bliss, Joyce, Robeson. Keifer, Gould, Field, 
and the grand old army of otlice-holding martyi-s who have 
monopolized for twenty years the " small flyers '" and "splendid 
things '" in the gift of the Republican organization, and intend 
to ifold them if they can for their natui-ul lives against all 
comers. 



60 Chapters for the Times. 

I have alluded to the course of the press in this contest as in 
honorable contrast to that of the bar on the Massachusetts arena. 
Among the lawyers retained for the defense of Mr. Blaine I owe 
an apology to Mr. Ebenezer liockwood Hoar for hitherto omit- 
ting the brother of the senator. There are now eight counsel- 
ors on the list. It is gratifying to those who know how fas- 
tidious he is to find that there is one man in the world for 
whom the Judge is proud to profess reverence. We agree 
with him when he says it is impossible to get up a party in 
this country on the issue whether or not peoj^le dislike Mr. 
Blaine. Gil Bias, and Scapin, and Figaro, and all the pleasant 
rogues of the Continental novelists and dramatists, — who dis- 
likes them ? Who dislikes Dorsey ? Dislike is not the word to 
apply to agreeable, dashing fellows like Blaine, Elkins, and 
Dorsey. But does not the Judge misrepresent the real issue ? 
Is it the question whether we like or dislike Mr. Blaine ? The 
question is not whether Blaine is a pleasant fellow, — that we 
admit, — but is he a man of such antecedents and such asso- 
ciations as ought to win the respect and confidence of the Ameri- 
can people, and command their suffrage for the highest office 
in their gift ? That is a very different question. And with due 
deference to Judge Hoar, I think he does great injustice to liim- 
self, as well as to the press, when he utters the somewhat misap- 
plied observation that " this campaign is not to be carried on or 
influenced to any extent by the ribaldry of scurrilous news- 
papers." Nobody is likely to be influenced by ribaldry or scur- 
rility, but the only ribald and scurrilous attack that I have yet 
noticed in the Massachusetts newspapers was published in a 
journal supposed to be in the special confidence of Mr. Blaine, 
and was put in circulation by the Republican state committee 
under the auspices of Mr. Lodge. It is not the ribald and scur- 
rilous press of the Republican party that opposes Mr. Blaine. 
It is those journals which have rendered the most efficient ser- 
vice in the Republican cause, which have always been active and 
prominent in advancing and protecting great public interests, 
and have uniformly maintained the highest character for abil- 
ity and integrity. 

Take the Republican journals of Massachusetts. A very 
eminent lawyer for the defense said to me the other day, " The 
' Daily Advertiser ' — yes — an old fogy newspaper that has 



Whlteivasliing, Painting^ a ml (lihlinii. 61 

not had any influence for forty years." For ni'arly tlircf fourths 
of a century it lias been a lca«lin<^ journal in New KMi,'lan«l. 
Federal at first, National luiiubliean, Whi;,% and K(i)uliru'an 
since ; honest, able, truthful, and conservative always. Ni-ver 
before has that journal taken a stand against the reij^ular nonii- 
nee of its party for any ofticc whatever. Is there not a stroijir 
significance in the fact that it opposes Mr. lilainc now? If its 
foundei", Nathan Hale, were living to-day, he would say that the 
" Advertiser " was right, and that his son Edward had brtter 
stick to his sermons and novrlettes, in which he has acijuired 
deserved distinction, than meddle with politics. I think I can 
hear that pure and wise man. who exercised so long such de- 
cided, indeed almost autocratic, influence among lioston gentle- 
men, saying, " Edward, my son, don't write any more about 
politics in the ' Independent : ' yon mean well, but you really 
dont know auAthing about it.'' When a geutleman xnidertakes 
to give the weight of his name to his opinions, and is not c«ni- 
tented to let them pass upon their merits, he should be sure that 
he knows something of the sul)ject he discusses. Mr. E. E. 
Hale is too incorrui)t himself to understand Blaine and his con- 
federates. 

But the " Advertiser " is only one of several leading Repub- 
lican newspapers in Massachusetts that have never been ril)ald 
or scurrilous, and that are ardent in their opposition to Blaine. 
From the days of Lynde M. ^^'alter, its founder, to the present 
days, the " Evening Transcript " has been in the same ])olitical 
line with the " Advei'tiser," — for many years not so decidedly 
political, but luiiformly working in the interest of sound morals 
and honest politics. So the P>oston " Herald," with its vast cir- 
culation and its remarkable ])olitical intelligence and ability, 
and the Springfield "■ Republican," the great organ of opinion 
in Western Massachusetts. Can any sensible man fail to under- 
stand the meaning and the importance of such a ])ersisti'nt and 
such an overwhelming revolt in the journals of a great i)arty 
against the presidential candidate of that party on the ground 
that he is a corrupt man, and that he has been jnit forward and 
is now sustained by corrupt confederates? 

So with the New York press. Could anything be more ]>re- 
posterous than the ciy that the " Evening Post " is a free trader, 
and is therefore opposed to the Republican nonunation ? Two 



62 Chapters for the Times. 

distiiiguishecl natives of Berkshire, William C. Brj'ant and 
Theodore Sedgwick, put the " Evening Post " on its free-trade 
course fifty years ago. It was at that time Democratic, and 
maintained its position in the Democratic ranks until it became 
one of the foremost Republican journals of the country. In 
spite of its inclination to free trade, it has supported from that 
time to this all the Kepublican candidates for all offices, and 
has been a warm advocate in behalf of all the presidential nomi- 
nees of the party, from Lincoln to Garfield. Did Republicans 
ever object to the support of the " Post," or fail to recognize its 
conspicuous position in the Republican ranks, because it enter- 
tained theoretical opinions on economical questions that differed 
from those of Senator Edmunds ? Did the " Post " withhold 
its advocacy from Mr. Edmunds as a presidential candidate, 
because Mr. Edmunds differed from the " Post " on the tariff 
question ? 

Look at the New York " Times." Its founder, Henry J. Ray- 
mond, stood godfather at the baptism of the Republican party. 
He wrote the address issued by its first convention, and the 
journal he established, in connection with its present editor, has 
always been the faithful, earnest, and consistent advocate of Re- 
publican principles. In every battle that has been fought in its 
day against corruption, the " Times " has been in the thick of the 
fray. Wherever the peculators and robbers have shown them- 
selves, in municipal, state, or national directions, the '' Times " 
has joursued them and declared war to the knife against them. 
It broke up the Tweed ring, and made Tilden's opportunity for 
him. It exposed the rascalities in the history of the Union 
Pacific, of which Blaine was the defender, and which led to that 
oft-repeated exhibition of himself which Senator Edmunds has 
fixed on a permanent canvas. It seconded Postmaster-General 
James's movement on the Star Route thieves, and if the prose- 
cution of them under Bliss had been lialf as efficient as the 
presentation of their cases by the " Times," they would have 
been surveying this contest from the loop-holes of a snug re- 
tirement, instead of figuring to-day conspicuously in the open 
as magnates and leaders of the Republican party. So with the 
independent " Herald," the " Telegram," the " Staats-Zeitung," 
"Harper's Weekly," "Puck," the "Graphics" Is there not a 
momentous interest and significance in the fact that all these 



Whitetvashinff, Painting^ and Gilding. 68 

Republican and Iiulepoiuleiit JDuriial.s are in fi)iiuiilablo array 
against the liepubliean pre siilcutial candidatf ? Can tliidgo 
Hoar or any other jndgt' tiuthtidly say that such journals arc 
ribald and scurrilous, and that tlio campaign is not to he in- 
fluenced by them to any extent in comparison with the inHufUcc 
that is to be exercised by the whitewashing, painting, and gikl- 
ing of Phelps, Dawes, and the Brothers Hoar? 

But while I write the papers are put into my hands which 
show that the warts and wrinkles and the deforming spots have 
broken out again through all these coats of surfa<*e a}>plicatit)ns, 
showing through in spite of the whitewash, the i)aint, the gold, 
and tlie varnish. More Mulligan letters, ]Mr. Morse I More 
contributions to the literature of jobbery and corrui)tion I 

These new letters prove not only that Blaine was himself a 
first-class liar, but that he tried to make his generous and lil)- 
eral friend lie for him, and believ'e that this lying was honor- 
able for both, and consistent with " the most scrupulous integ- 
rity." I find, too, some new points in the Northern Pacific 
business, in which Blaine figures in the Lie Direct, and his 
friend Phelps in the Lie with Circumstance. Between them 
they have involved you^ Mr. Morse, in a disingcnuousness which 
is not creditable, and which I think you owe it to yourself to 
exjjlain. I may recur to this, for I consider it important. 
September 15. 



Published at the Valley Gleaner Office^ Lee^ Berhshire 
County, Massachusetts. 

Single copies, post-paid, 8 cents. 
15.00 a hundred; 140.00 a thousand. 



CHAPTERS FOR THE TIMES. 

THIRD PART. 

BY A BEKKSIIIRE FARMER. 



XIII. 

SPECULATING AND JOBBING STATESMEN. 

Does a Nomination Chanrje a Candidate whom Massachusetts Citi- 
zens have three times rejected? 

A Republican of Republicans, one who has never joined the 
Independents, writes me from Boston as follows : " It strikes 
me that Blaine is laioeked ' higher than a kite ' by the last 
batch of Mulligan letters. It can't be necessary to spend much 
more powder on him." Knowing the writer, and knowiuLC him 
to be a representative of thousands of citizens in Massachusetts 
who are not allied to office or office-holders, and who judg-e of 
public men and public measures for themselves, I consider this 
simple expression of opinion from such a quarter a fact of very 
great significance. If the class of intelligent men of affairs 
whom he represents come to the same conclusion (and I do not 
see how it can be otherwise), it is in the power of the Democrats, 
under the lead of such eminently worthy men as Endicott and 
Grinnell, to give the electoral vote of Massachusetts to Grover 
Cleveland. I say that it is in their jwwer — unless they see fit 
to throw away their su£frag;es on a personal favorite who stands 
no possible chance of securing the electoral vote for himself. 
To this subject I shall revert in a future diapter. Meanwhile, 
I desire my brother farmers to reflect on this suggestion. 

To the moral of this new batch of Mulligan letters, and of 
aU the Mulligan letters now before the people, I piopose to 
devote this chapter, and I desire the farmers of Massachusetts 



66 Chapters for the Times. 

whom It may reach to ponder well on the facts that it will pre- 
sent for their consideration. It touches a subject of infinite 
moment, and cannot be dismissed as the outcome of a ribald and 
scurrilous press. It touches the vice and canker of the times 
— the greed of gold. It illustrates the monstrous evils that 
flow from excessive and oppressive taxation, creating the enor- 
mous surplus that, in the hands of money-loving, ambitious, and 
unscrupulous men, is a fund for undermining the virtue of the 
people, and sapping the corner-stone of the Republic. 

It is only in connection with the lesson to be learned from it, 
and the emphatic warning that it speaks to the American people, 
that I venture with great reluctance to comment on the humilia- 
tion of President Grant. At a comparatively advanced period 
in his life he was smitten with tlie speculative avarice that en- 
grossed James G. Blaine from the very commencement of his 
political career. As far as the people can know. General Grant 
entered the public service in honorable poverty and left it with 
a resj)ectable competence. No such stains as disgraced a Marl- 
borough attach to his military history. His hands were clean. 
He never appeared as a claim agent, for twenty-five per cent, 
commission, to collect trumped-up bills for railroad corporations 
to pay them for a service voluntarily and gratuitously proffered. 
He exercised no underhand personal or official influence in rec- 
ommending to the war department inventions of sjieculative 
partners in the way of " wonderful " rifles, involving wonderful 
patent fees which we farmers know the like of, in a small way, 
in the levies of the barbed-wire peddlers and lightning-rod men. 
Twice, with a large majority of his grateful countrymen, I took 
an active interest in the elevation of General Grant to the pres- 
idency. I had no hesitation whatever in supporting him for a 
third term against the two men who combined to defeat his 
nomination, and who had both yielded to the seductions of the 
tempter. In the face of Blaine's theatrical exhibition of his 
case in the House of Representatives ; in the face of his sup- 
pression of facts, his interception of witnesses, his bullying and 
abuse of tlie Judiciary Committee, his cringing appeals to Mul- 
ligan for the letters, the pawning of his word of honor to Mul- 
ligan and leaving it in pawn, his pretended communication of 
the contents of the letters to his countrymen, without giving any 
human being the opportunity of ascertaining whether or not 



Speculating and Johhing Statesmen. 67 

the communication was honestly ma(h', his iiuh'oont charge 
against the committee in respect to the manufactured tele<^ram 
of Josiah Caldwell which Mr. Knott was warranted in saying 
was a "put-up job," his ])hen()menal lying through the whole 
matter, — in the face of all this we could not hesitate to jirefer 
the nomination of General (Jrant for a third term to the nom- 
ination of Blaine for a first tenn. 

Up to that time nothing had occurred to shake poptdar con- 
fidence in the sound judgment of General Grant, or to lead the 
public to suppose that he was greedy of gold, or cajjable of 
using any methods of a questionable nature for its acquisition. 
He afterwards fell into the hands of men who saw money in the 
use of his name and of his i)ri'stigc in their speculative opera- 
tions. He succumbed to the temptation. He posed as the at- 
tractive figure-head in Jay Gould's South- Western railroad 
schemes. Bad led to worse. The plain and honest soldier 
became an avaricious, money-loving, money-seeking speculator. 
After having attained the topmost heights of human ambition, 
after having been for years the first man in the first nation of 
the world, he fell. Instead of following the example of all his 
predecessors in the presidency, and enjoying an unostentatious 
retirement in moderate and honorable circumstances, he began 
to feel that all his military and civic honors were nothing unless 
he could supplement them with large material wealth. He 
thirsted for a fortune that would enable him to couq)ete in show 
and splendor with the railroad kings, the pork monopolists, the 
great bankers, the wheat speculators, and the forestallei-s, en- 
grossers, and regraters of the Mining, Produce, and Stock Ex- 
changes. 

He became the slave of a sordid passion for money, and the 
associate, as it turned out, of swindlers and thieves. The great 
soldier, the eminent civilian, put up his name and his fame a.s 
the valuable banking capital of a plunder shop. The most emi- 
nent living man of the nation was used as the decoy duck of 
sharpers and blacklegs. Not knowingly, — but he was daz- 
zled and hoodwinked by the exhibition of fabulous j)rolits and 
marvelous accumulations. He thought he was on the highway 
to boundless wealth when he could borrow on his note of hand 
$150,000 of his brother millionaire Mr. Vanderbilt. And the 
next day he was a beggar, — involved in pecuniary obligations 



68 Chapters for the Times. 

from which he can never be rescued, — the blind partner and the 
stolid victim in the most stupendous and avidacious frauds that 
have ever been chronicled in our financial history. 

With the knowledge we now possess of the character of Gen- 
eral Grant, derived from the notorious financial transactions, or 
rather the fraudulent operations of the house of Grant, Ward & 
Co., would intelligent and reflecting men entertain the idea for 
a moment of reelecting him to the presidency of the United 
States ? I think not. 

The character of James G. Blaine is familiar to us in advance. 
If we elect him to the presidency we elect a man whom we know 
to be a rapacious jobber. His love of money; his persistent 
and inveterate pursuit of it ; his implications in all manner of 
methods for obtaining it ; his " small flyers ; " his " splendid 
things:" his "wonderful" rifles; his "very rare chances;" 
his receipt " in trust " of moneys that were not forthcoming for 
more than a year after they were imperatively demanded ; his 
" little transactions in Boston " that were not transacted ; his 
extreme solicitude for the " protection of his private correspond- 
ence ; " his unredeemed honor in the hands of James Mulligan ; 
his " extreme frankness " in communicating nothing whatever in 
addition to his own letters to avoid " evil surmises, and still more 
evil inferences ; " his " natural desire to make as much as he 
fairly could " out of the sale of Little Rock bonds to his neigh- 
bors substantially at fifty per cent, above the market price ; his 
"botheration" at not being able to obtain a definite and ex- 
pressed arrangement with Caldwell ; his extreme satisfaction for 
the term of eight years with Fisher's " imbounded liberality," 
contrasted with liis inability to bring Caldwell to a " definite 
proposition ; " his " fearful embarrassments " in consequence of 
Fisher's " positive cruelty " in the matter of bonds that Blaine 
purchased only "to the amount of 130,000," and on the "same 
terms as everybody else ; " his expressed " endeavor," when 
writing to Fisher, to bring his own official usefulness to Cald- 
well's attention, " not to be indelicate ; " his efforts to secure the 
bank at Little Rock and the United States arsenal for Fisher 
and Caldwell as a matter of "favoritism," and his suggestion 
that national banks are " very profitable institutions," thus cast- 
ing " an anchor to the windward" for subsequent appeals to 
Fisher's kindness and generosity and to Caldwell's undoubted 



Speculating and >lolh'u\(j Slate^mcn. 69 

if]isposition to treat him haiulsoniely ; his willin^^^ness to keep 
things quiet, to k't nobody know that he had ever ih)nc anvtliinj^ 
in Maine, so that Fisher niiglit have no eniharrassnient in speak- 
ing to Caklwell ; his mixing himself uj) in matters which he 
" could not touch," and in whiih his name eoidd not he men- 
tioned ; his placing himself by his use of trust funds in such a 
position as would permit his c()rresj)ondent to write him in a 
mysterious but signiticant manner, but without rebuke, — - I 
should judge it was for your interest to settle the matter at once, 
and have no further delay;" his deafness to the frecpien^ im- 
portunities for return of trust money till Fisher was eompelleil 
to surrender his obligations to the parties in interest ; Fisher's 
unanswered assertions to him that he had advanced him very 
large sums of money, for which Blaine had never \v,\\A from his 
own pocket one dollar of principal or interest, and had j)aid him 
very large sums of money without one dollar of e.\])ense to him 
[Blaine] : All this, with all that it imjilies, and nmch more 
of the same sort, we knov/ about James G. Blaine before the 
presidential election. ]Much of this, but not all, we knew as 
long ago as 1876. 

In that year Massachusetts Republicans sent delegates to the 
National Convention who knew what was then known about 
Blaine, and who protested that a man with such a record coulil 
never receive the support of Massachusetts, and that Iiis nomina- 
tion would 1)0 a fatal and irretrievable mistake, sure to residt in 
deserved disaster and defeat. They returned home and their 
constituents approved their course. 

In 1880 IMassachusetts Rej)iil)llcans sent delegates to another 
convention, in which the same old ring of Blaim- men rea])- 
peared. They were well disciplined, trained and banded, l)ent 
upon getting the candidate of tlieir choice, and hot in pursuit of 
the " splendid things " that could be evolved from the manipu- 
lation of a revenue of «!350,000,000. But the Massachusetts 
delegates stood firm in their opposition to Blaine. They ap- 
pealed to his " doubtful record," they l)rought up the ]>itiful 
picture of Blaine ''almost on his knees " to Mullig-an, an«l they 
asked themselves and each other if a man who had ever stoml in 
such an attitude before the American peojde could Ijc so white- 
washed and painted as to appear wortliy to occupy the seat 
which had been sometime filled by those incornijitible sons of 



70 Chapters for the Times. 

Massachusetts — John Adams and John Quincy Adams. They 
asked themselves the question if it were possible for the human 
imagination to conceive of these great patriots and sages trading 
on their official opportunities ; the subjects of a congressional in- 
vestigation on charges of corruption ; and in their fright and 
shame pawning their honor, without redeeming it, to rescue from 
public exhibition the damning evidences of their dishonorable 
traffic. They answered this question to themselves and each 
other in the negative. They decided that the nomination of 
such a man could not be sustained in the State, and they com- 
promised on Garfield. A convention of American citizens for 
the first time in American history submitted to our suffrages for 
the highest office in their gift a man who had been suspected of 
jobbery and of lying about it. Never before had any party vent- 
ured on such a step. There had been Federal, Democratic, Na- 
tional Republican, Whig, Democratic Republican, Anti-Masonic, 
Free Soil and Know Nothing conventions, and never before, had 
any statesman been presented by any convention whose name 
had been associated with a job and a lie. Garfield was the 
entering wedge. The election of Garfield in 1880 alone made 
possible the nomination of Blaine in 1884. 

When the convention of 1884 came, two previous campaigns 
had enabled Mr. Blaine to get his " organizing force " thoroughly 
well in hand. It had been through eight years of discipline and 
education. Pie knew, and tho country knew, just how many 
Blaine delegates had been returned to the convention, though I 
think Senator Hoar stated that he did not believe Blaine knew 
anything about it. There were none counted from Massachu- 
setts. The Massachusetts delegates went to the convention as 
determined as ever to oppose Mr. Blaine for the same causes of 
opposition which governed them in 1876 and 1880. We know 
the delegates who figui-ed there prominently in his behalf, and 
we know that they were not of a character to influence the judg- 
ment of intellisfent and honest men in favor of their candidate. 
We all remember the scenes that were enacted on that occasion 
— the theatrical shows of enthusiasm, the transparencies, the 
banners, the shouting, the music, all the surroundings that 
money could buy, and that money could have bought for Mr. 
Eclminids as well as for Mr. Blaine if the friends of Mr. Ed- 
munds could have condescended to use it. The clamor and con- 



Speculating and Jobbing Statesmen. 71 

fusion were never before paralleled in a convention, unless it 
may have been in a conveiitidij of Sunn CitJottcn in the Fau- 
bourg St. Antoine in the clays of the French Revolution. Noi.so 
and bi'ass carried the day. Mr. Blaine's tactics i)revailed. The 
money rin<^ and tb.e Star Route thieves dominated the conven- 
tion completely, and the Massachusetts men were oidi;^ed to ac- 
quiesce reluctantly in the nomination of the candidate whom they 
had, in two previous conventions, opposed to the bitter end with 
the entire approbation of their constituents. AVliy opposed? 
On account of his political opinions ? No — on account of his 
corrupt record. 

When this campaign opened Mr. B. F. Jones, whom Mr. 
Blaine appointed to the responsible post of Republican money 
raiser for the purpose of buying voters, undertook to tell us 
what the people were going to talk about this fall. He saiil the 
issue was to be the tariff. Jones thought an issue was some- 
thing to be made to order, and that the order would be filled as 
readily as a call for a hundred barrels of petroleum. A\'illiam 
E. Chandler announced at Washington another issue, to be run 
with the tariff side by side — and that was to keep before the 
people the confederate brigadiers. The last issue has been ex- 
perimented on with such moderate success by Judge Robinson 
and the Hoars that Blaine has determined to confine tlie figlit 
as far as possible to the tariff and the surplus. He declared 
this in his somewhat turgid declamation on the result of the 
Maine election, when he said the speakers and newspapers in 
Maine had been talking and writing very diligently an«l exclu- 
sively about the tariff. But ivom. the start it was intended that 
his orators and editors, local or itinerant, should })reaeh nothing 
but the gosjiel of money and the gospel of hate, as announced by 
Jones and Chandler. 

Both these issues have been practically eliminated from our 
canvass. The living issue, the only issue of the slightest im- 
portance in this campaign, is the issue on which the Rejudilican 
delegates from Massachusetts have three times gone into the 
presidential convention, and three times decided it against Mr. 
Blaine. And now the men who represented in that convention 
the hostile sentiments of Massachusetts, as far as they are office- 
holders or candidates for office, have come out one and all a.s the 
panegjTists and eulogists of Mr. Blaine. If we believe them, 



72 -Chapters for the Times. 

for the first time in the history of the world, we have found an 
angel instead of a man to govern us. Citizens of Massachu- 
setts ! There are the records. You can read for yourselves. 
Read them in the light of the lives of your own good and great 
men, and do not listen to the infamous doctrine that you must 
accept a lower standard for the men of to-day. Look on your 
Adamses and Quincys, your Otises and Sumners, your Brookses 
and Eustises, your Sullivans and Everetts, your Choates and 
Websters, your Mortons and Andrewses, your Aliens and New- 
tons, your Winthrops and Endicotts, your Cabots and Parsonses, 
your Gores and Se walls, your Lincolns and Saltonstalls. I could 
run up the list from scores to hundreds of well-known names, 
and not one jDublic man of them was ever vStained with a job 
or a lie. 

September 20, 1884. 



XIV. 

HOW BLAINE TOOK HIS MAINE NEIGHBORS INTO HIS CONFI- 
DENCE. 

Governor Long's Mud and Miasma. 

I HAD intended to devote a chaj)ter to an explanation of the 
methods by which Mr. Blaine took ten of his neighbors into his 
confidence, and gave them ten considerable "flyers'' in his Lit- 
tle Rock and Fort Smith enterprise, that he has been lying 
about, and getting other people to lie about, for the last eight 
years. 

With this purpose still in embryo, I find the thing explained 
in a summary way in one of Mr. Blaine's organs in the city of 
New York — not the "Sun," but the "Tribune." The latter 
journal, which now represents a distinguished California mill- 
ionaire, is much less useful to the Star Route thieves than the 
sheet which a New York millionaire publishes for his amuse- 
ment to the dismay of the Democratic party. 

The " Tribune " explains the Little Rock business by saying 
that " He [Blaine] had fallen among sharpers." It was a case 
of stock-watering on a large scale, and Blaine instead of being, 
an accomplice was a victim. This presents the matter in a new 
light. Let us see how it will bear examination. 



How Blaine took his Maine Neighbors into his Confuhnce. 73 

It is jjenerally imclerstood that Jay (louM and flu- late C 
Vaiuloil)ilt were tlio most distinjj^nislird stouk-svatfrcis that 
ever tigured in this fouiitry, hut I thiidv this a inistaUc These 
gentlemen watered their stocks after they put them upon the 
public, but if you want to see a really thoroui^^h (h-«'uehiiiL,'' of a 
railroad beforehand, a choice specimen of an eiiterpris(; that is 
drowned in the water required to lioat its securities, you have 
got to study the contracts and bargains of Sliarper Fislier and 
Broker Blaine. The true inwardness of tlieir transactions in a 
business point of view has never been thoroughly canvassed. 
^Ir. Scluuz's exhaustive study is confined to Mr. lUaine's con- 
nection with this matter in its bearing upon the ex-Speaker as 
a public servant, huckstering his oflicial opportunities of useful- 
ness, for purposes of personal gain. But how do the facts in 
the ease exhibit him as a man of business? Has he manifested 
good judgment and a disposition to honorable dealing as be- 
tween "himself and Fisher, or as between himself and his neigh- 
bors? This is a mine that has not yet to my knowledge been 
thoroughly explored. 

On the 29th of June, 18G9, some three or four months after 
Mr. Blaine's election as Speaker of the House, and after his 
ruling that was so important to the Little Rock and Fort Smith 
Railroad, Mr. Blaine aclmowledged a very generous offer from 
Mr. Fislier to admit him to a i)articipation in the new railroad 
enterprise. This offer took the form eventually of an arrange- 
ment between them of a private nature, by which Mr. Blaine, 
without the investment of a dollar of his own, was to obtain 
subscriptions from his friends in Maine for building the road, 
and secure in compensation a large amount of bonils and cash 
free of cost. Mr. Blaine was known to his friends and neigh- 
bors as a man who had made a great deal of money out of his 
government contracts, and as enjoying singularly favorable ojv 
portunities from his political and official position of procuring 
" splendid things " for himself, and jiersons in whom lie felt an^ 
interest. When, therefore, :Mr. Blaine took his neighlx.rs into' 
his confidence, and explained to them that he was able to let 
them into a railroad enterprise on the same terms as those on 
which he was going to invest on his own account, they of course 
'jumped at the opportunity, and thought themselves very lucky 
fellows to enjoy such special intimacy with the speculative 



74 Chapters for the Times. 

Speaker. A very earnest canvass for subscribers ensued. Prob- 
ably no man in the country, except perhaps Ward — formerly 
of Wall and now of Ludlow street — possessed the same faculty 
as Mr. Blaine of puffing and blowing a " rare chance " of this 
description, and a considerable number of individuals fell into 
the trap — ten in a single lot. Their case has been thorouglily 
discussed in another connection, so I will here take up the 
transaction with Mr. James M. Hagar, of Richmond, Maine ; 
the more willingly because it has been the subject of a recent 
explanation by Mr. Hagar himself. The following table from 
Mr. Blaine's memorandum book gives the figures of the trans- 
action : 

\_Sixth page of viemoranduni hook.'] 

2. With James M. Hagar, of Richmond, Mr. Fisher agrees to 
deliver 

$6,000 common stock. 
6,000 preferred stock. 
6,000 land-bonds, 7s. 
7,500 fii'st mortgage bonds, 6s. 



AU for $9,500, 


payable — 




$1,200 \ 




$3,000, November 25, 1869. 


1,400 [ 




2,000, December 5, 1869. 


900 ) 




1,500, January 5, 1870. 
600, February 5, 1870. 
600, March 5, 1870. 
600, April 5, 1870. 
600, May 5, 1870. 
600, June 5, 1870. 



$9,500 
The amounts enclosed on left-hand margin above, viz : $1,200, 
$1,400, $900, are payable by Mr. Fisher to Mr. Blaine. 

Let us consider this transaction as between Blaine and Fisher 
and then as between Blaine and Mr. Hagar. 

It appears, then, that for netting Mr. Fisher |G,000, Mr. 
Blaine was to receive $3,500. That is to say, for every dollar 
that Mr. Fisher got out of this Maine gentleman, Mr. Blaine 
pocketed GO cents. Wliat did Mr. Blaine have to sell Mr. 
Fisher at such a fiendishly exorbitant rate? Was it what ex- 
Governor Long styles " push " ? Was it because Blaine was a 
pushing man, with the cheek of a book-agent, and the Gascon's 



How Blaine took his Maine Neighbors into his Confidence. 75 

persistency, that would enable liim after being kicked out of 
the door to eonie in a^ain at tin- window, that for every doHar 
Fisher realized from lilaine's friends Hlaine was U) receive 00 
cents? But what else did Fisher give for this •'5!G,000? IIo 
gave Mr. Ilaj^ar 'f 7,500 per cent, mortgage bonds ; >«(J,000 
7 per cent, land-grant bonds, and a tjuantity of stock, common 
and preferi'ed, that constituted no pressing obligation on the 
company. The payment of the #9,500 ran thnjugh several 
months, so that there was a considerable interest account to di- 
minish Mr, Fisher's #0,000 — but this we will leave out of con- 
sideration. For this #0,000 Fisher, besides the #3,500 cash 
paid to Blaine, assumed for the road liabilities to the amount of 
#13,500, carrying an annual interest of #870. 

Once more I ask what was it besides cheek antl brass that 
Mr. Blaine had to sell Fisher at this enormous price? Well, 
there was something to be paid for magnetism — something 
handsome on this account. But deduct the magnetism money 
and how much of the residue of this extraordinary " conunis- 
sion " is to be set dowTi to Mr. Blaine's marketing of his official 
position, the confidence it inspired in his ability to command 
wonderful oi)portunities, rare chances, and splendid things? 
Was it not his o^cial prestige that Fisher bouglit and paid for? 
Was it not the Speaker of the House that he used as the decoy 
duck in this business ? Did he tliink that James G. Blaine jkt- 
sonally, with his Spencer rifle, would bring down this game in 
a still hunt ? Look at it with what charity we may, was it not 
the speakership of the House of Representatives of the United 
States that enabled Mr. Blaine to extort such obviously ruinous 
terms from this desperately needy enterprise? AVliat wonder 
that Fisher was ruined, and that the enterprise shortly came to 
grief. What else could Blaine have ex])ected ? 

Leaving this view of the case for the present, and assuming 
that it was a proof of Mr. Blaine's smartness that he was able 
to drive such an extraordinary bargain with Fisher as to receive 
00 cents for every dollar that he i)aid into Fisher's excheipier, 
how was it with his Maine friends? How was it with Mr. 
Hagar? If Mr. Blaine knew anything, \w must liave known 
that the attempt to build a railroad by paying #3,500 cash and 
issuing interest-bearing bonds for #13,500 to raise #0.000, out 
of which Fisher was to take toll before it got into the enterpri.se. 



76 Chapters for the Times. 

— he knew tliat such an attempt could only end in early disas- 
ter and bankruptcy. Indeed, the raising of money on such 
terms was an admission and a demonstration of insolvency if 
not of dishonesty. Whatever faith he may have had in Fisher's 
railroad, he knew that it could not but be an extra-hazardous 
risk for any man to put his money in it. Test it in this way. 
Suppose he had told Mr. Hagar that of the 19,500 paid by him 
for his batch of securities he (Blaine) was to receive $3,500 for 
roping him (Hagar) into the operation. Would Hagar have 
parted with his money ? When he told Hagar that this was a 
" great chance," the knowledge of which he had acquired in the 
Speaker's chair, and the '" control " of which he had acquired 
by his familiarity with Boston capitalists who recognized his 
ability to be " useful to them in various channels," and there- 
fore gave him preferences in the acquisition of their securities 
which he was anxious to share with his constituents, — when 
Blaine told Hagar this, admit it was all true except so far as it 
led Hagar to believe that Blaine was putting his own money 
into this " splendid thing " on the same terms. When Blaine 
took Hagar's money he knew that the Little Eock Railroad 
would defaidt on its very first coupons unless it could raise 
money to pay its interest by the issue of new bonds negotiated 
on the same cut-throat conditions as those on which he was ne- 
gotiating these very bonds. Suppose he had " told the truth " 
to Hagar at that time. But you say he was trying to make 
money out of Hagar and could not be expected to tell the 
truth. 

I insist that the relation in which Blaine stood to Hagar at 
that time was one which called on Blaine's part for what law- 
yers for the defense would style rightly enough uberrima fides, 
that is to say, the fairest and most conscientious dealing — en- 
tire good faith. Hagar was Ids neighbor. Hagar was his con- 
stituent. Hagar was his political friend. Hagar confided in 
Blaine's familiarity with the Boston capitalists, and his ability 
to get " splendid things " and great bargains out of them. He 
understood why and wherefore Blaine was an important man 
for them, and the consideration for which he was to command, 
such opportunities. Those were the circumstances under which 
Blaine approached Hagar, and magnetized |9,500 out of him, 
$3,500 of which he put into his own pocket. Hagar was a man 



Hoiv Blaine took Jus Main,- Mi 'hjJibors into his Confidence. 77 

of business. IIo understood tlio valiu; of money. Would ho 
not know that a man wlio was payiuj^ JUaine >'3,r)0(J e;i.sh and 
•y] 3,500 in his own bonds, beside $12,000 in the gtork of the 
road, to raise 60,000, was only looking forward to inevitable ami 
scandalous l)ankru})tey ? 

Ilagar came to the coneluslou very naturally, when the road 
failed on its first coupons, that ii was a fraud, lie tnld P»laine 
so wlieu he met him in \Vashiiii;t<jn a year or two after the 
collapse of the road. Mr. lla^ar wrote recently to a friend 
in New York: "My opinion was Jirm/t/ expressed to Jilaine 
that the securities had no value and tiie road was a fraud." 
Mr. Blaine replied that the securities had a value and, with 
time and patience, all would end well. !Mr. llagar was not to 
be blurted oft" in this way. ^Ir. Ilagar recalled " t/ir cirruin- 
stances tinder ichich they were taken,'' — the material eircinu- 
stance of Mr. Blaine's GO cents for a dollar commission not 
being at that time known to ]\Ir. Hagar. Blaine admitted the 
" circumstances," and promised to refund on his retui-n to Au- 
gusta. Mr. Ilagar on his return home made a statement of the 
transaction in writing and sent it to Mr. lUaine in Washington. 
On his return to Augusta Mr. Blaine paid the money and re- 
ceived back the securities. 

Does this restitution change the character of the original 
transaction ? Was it not on account of the " circumstances " 
of the original transaction that Mr. Hagar based his a|ij)cal to 
Mr. Blaine when he met liim in AVashington ? Was the enor- 
mous commission paid to Blaine any the less the ]irice of Mr. 
Blaines official position and its prestir/e because Blaine, when 
the explosion took place and exposure was imminent, thought it 
best to repay the money, under the idea, as Mr. Phelps puts it, 
that the victim had a "moral claim " ujxin him to be made 
whole ? And ]Mr. Blaine suftered no detriment. Of the •$0,000 
to be made good with interest he already had •'?-^>,')00 in his own 
pocket as commissions. He was able to place all his bonds at 
good prices with the sevei'al subsidized railroads that had busi- 
ness before Congress, and was thus amply i)ut in funds to re- 
imburse, without a dollar's loss to himself, the loss whieh Mr. 
Hagar had sustained by his over-confidence in his magnetic and 
magnificent friend. 

Now what can "our best men" sav to all this".' What can 



78 Chapters for the Times. 

the eight or ten lawj^ers for the defense, from Dawes to Morse, 
say of this sale of official prestige in this single transaction ? — 
"for it was the Speakership and nothing else that Blaine was 
trailing in the "mud and miasma" of this sordid and disgrace- 
ful brokerage. 

Come, Mr. Wellington Smith, you have volunteered to give 
your respectable name as a voucher for this corrupt politician, 
and you have ajspealed to your fellow-citizens in print to offset 
the declamations of what you call our " best men " against the 
facts that I am submitting to their careful consideration. Will 
you tell the farmers of Becket and Tyringham, of Otis and 
Washington, of Monterey and Great Barrington, that a man 
who has sold the prestige of the Speaker's chair at a price only 
limited by the utmost farthing that " insatiate greediness " could 
venture to extort from a " liberal " and " generous friend " is a 
fit man to receive their vote for the first office in the gift of a 
great nation ? 

Imagine yourself in Mr. Hagar's place, or Mr. Fisher's place 
for the time, and answer that question. 

October 3. 



XV. 

THE HISTORIC JUDGMENTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

Shall Massachusetts basely reverse them ? 

Before touching the subject of this chapter, bear with me a 
moment for one word of personal explanation. I am told that 
a lawyer in good repute — the defenders of Blaine are all law- 
yers — paid his respects, the other evening at a public meeting 
in Lee, to the Berkshire Farmer. 

He made three charges against me. The first was that week 
after week I am filling the " Gleaner " with lies against his 
candidate. The chapters arc all in print. If Judge Branning 
will point out any thing in them that is untrue or intended to 
deceive or mislead anybody, then the " Gleaner " may pub- 
lish his exposure at my expense. This is a grave charge, and I 
demand the proofs or a retraction. Produce the proofs. Judge. 

The second allegation was that I am a pretty sort of a farmer 



Tlie Historic Juth/nt,iit8 of Miisxachuiietts. 79 

liocause I don't farm in wiiittr. On my farm \vt> <rt>t in all tlio 
crops in the snnuncr and fall. There is no plon^^hin;; or har- 
vesting done there with tiiree feet of snow on the ^ronnd. If 
the Jndi;c wants to know whether I am a farmer or not, and 
knows where to find mo, let him ai)oloL;ize for his eharj^es and 
drop in some day and 1 "11 show him around, lie shall see 
fields that a few years ago were covered with hardhaeks a.s 
high as his head, that have borne this year good crops of clo- 
ver and timothy or of potatoes and corn. He shall .see a herd 
of as good-looking and well-hred cows as are to he found in 
Berkshire, all raised ou the farm, and most of them horn there. 
He shall see a good lot of horses, horn and raised there ; and 
my foreman will explain to him why it is that we don't raise 
our crops in winter. 

There are some farmers who raise their crops all the year 
round, hut they are farmers of the revenue and not of the soil. 
Their mills are going night and \\iiy. They sow and reap sum- 
mer and winter ; with them it is always seed-time and always 
harvest. These are the office-holders, the custom-house sjpiads, 
the Star Route thieves, the monopolists, the governing class 
generally, who are so anxious to protect themselves in the dis- 
bursement of the |<350,000,000 tliat are annually levied on the 
American people, and to the enormous excess of one hundred 
millions over and above the most lavish and corrujjt expendi- 
tui-es. No — I don't farm in winter. 

The third charge is that I am a free-trader. The Judge can- 
not sustain that charge by anytliing he finds in the chai)ters. I 
am just such a free-trader as Hamilton was, and Clay and Web- 
ster, and the Careys. I am just such a free-trader as Judge 
Hoar is, but I believe there is no warrant in the Constitution 
for raising from the people by any manner or form of taxation 
a surplus for distribution among the States. History teaches 
us that in all ages the governing class have exhausttMl tlu'ir in- 
genuity in extracting from the people the last fartiiing that was 
to be got from them; and never in any kingdom or emi)ire did 
the most rapacious office-holding robbers of the pcoph' ext«.rt 
from them more than was necessary to support the offic.'-holdcr.s 
in luxury, and find their friends in rich jobs and profitable con- 
tracts. The Surplus is an enormity reserved for a Democratic 
republic in the nineteenth century. 



80 Clia'pter% for the Times. 

Once or twice in the course of these chapters I have anucled 
to Bhiine's attack on Massachusetts, on the floor of the Senate 
of the United States, and have remarked upon the course pur- 
sued by the honorable Senators from the Bay State on that oc- 
casion. In these remarks I have unwittingly done injustice to 
Senator Hoar. He said more than I thought he did, but it is 
not strange that I should fail to remember what he has himself 
so strangely forgotten. When he told us what his original 
opinion was on the Mulligan letters had he not forgotten what 
he said on the floor of the Senate ? 

The subject deserves more elaborate treament than I have yet 
given it, and I propose to devote this chapter to its considera- 
tion. I respectfully ask the attention, not only of the farmers of 
the Commonwealth, but of all its citizens, be they Prohibition- 
ists, Eepublicans, Democrats, Butlerites, or Independents, to the 
extraordinary circumstances of that attack, and to the humilia- 
tion to which Massachusetts must submit if she aids in the ele- 
vation of Blaine to the presidency. 

On this subject I feel deeply. I love the State of my nativ- 
ity. Born in what was then a fishing hamlet on one of her 
capes, within a hundred yards of the salt water, and inhaling 
in ray childhood its invigorating breezes, I have a lively recol- 
lection of the days when the gallant population of that exposed 
hamlet rallied to the drum-beat that told of a British cruiser in 
the offing, and there was not a traitor or coward in the whole 
crowed. I remember the shouting, the bell-ringing and the illu- 
mination that followed the proclamation of peace. In my old 
aae I find among; the hills of Berkshire a home that is as dear 
to me as the sea-coast home of my childhood ; and I protest with 
all sincerity and eai'nestness that I believe our people are now 
going through a struggle by far more important to them than 
our war with England was, and the results of which, for good 
or for evil, will have a far more lasting and important influence 
on our character and our destiny as a nation. Time heals 
the wounds of war. The fields devastated, the harvests de- 
stroyed, the smoking ruins and the multitudinous graves, in 
a few years peace and nature cover with their charitable 
mantle. 

But let it once be established by the votes of the Nation that 
proofs of shameless and persistent jobbery, and proofs piled 



The Ilistorii; Juil'jin, uls vj Mnxsachnxi'tts. 81 

mountain lii<;h of sluuncli'ss and persistent lyinj; al)out it, are 
no bar to the atlvanc-eiiieiit of a j)iil)lie man; tliat jtartisans 
antl oflice-hoklers may laiiL^li and jest ahoul these )tri)t»ts as 
'•• s})cnt rt)t'kets " — more warts and wrinkles on a eonntenanco 
that they only beautify — mere evidences of oner^^y and j)ush — 
absolute " decorations ; " that our nominations are to 1»<! maile 
by money; that our elections are to be carried by brilx-rv ; 
that our offices are to be sold in open nnirket to men who will 
raise the largest sum in Wall Street to pay lor them, as tlie 
French mission was sold under Garfield, — let it be understoo<l 
that the iiistokic judgments of great states on these facts will 
be set aside in favor of the culprit, if he can secure by any 
means a nomination to the presidency, and the wliole system of 
Kepublican government becomes a failure and a fraud. 

On the 22d of January, 1878, Senator Hamlin, of Maine, sul> 
mitted a resolution in the Senate of the United States i)resent- 
ing the thanks of Congress to the people of ]VIaine for the gift 
of the statue of William King, the fii'st governor of that state, 
to be placed in one of the halls of the Capitol. Mr. Hamlin 
prefaced the offer of his resolution with appropriate remarks, 
and was followed by his colleague, Mr. Blaine. The latter gen- 
tleman had given the Senators from Massachusetts twenty-four 
hours' notice of his intention to offer such observations in re- 
gard to the State they represented as would make it desirable 
for them to be in their seats. His speech was not made on a 
sudden impulse, excited by the collisions and ardors of debate. 
It was carefully premeditated, conned over, and no doubt written 
out beforehand. His intention was to insult the Senators from 
Massachusetts, and, as far as he was capable of doing it, to insult 
Massachusetts herself. He went into the Senate Chamber witli 
his Spencer rifle loaded and ])rimed, and had warned Mr. Hoar 
and Mr. Dawes that they must look for hot shot. 

It was for his conduct on this occasion, I in-csume, that Mr. 
Hoar bestowed ujion Mr. Bkiine the title of a " courageous and 
high-spirited gentleman." He began by a eulog^' on Mr. King 
that was made the excuse for the attack on Massachusetts*. 
Maine was originally a part of Massachusetts, and known as the 
district of Maine. The ])eo])le of the district found the joi:rnoy 
to the seat of goveinment inconvenient, and the geograph'cal 
position of the district made an independent condition desirable. 
6 



82 Chapters for the Times. 

There were some differences of political opinion between the 
people of Maine and the ])ec)ple of Massachusetts, just as there 
were between the county of Suffolk and the county of Berkshire 
— no more, no less. But Mr. Blaine starts off with the allega- 
tion that the connection with Massachusetts had become exceed- 
ingly " distasteful," indeed quite " intolerable " to a majority 
of the i^eople of Maine. " This dislike," he adds, " was strongly 
inflamed by the war of 1812, and the resulting political differ- 
ences." A majority of the people of Massachusetts were op- 
posed to the war, and a majority in the district of Maine sup- 
ported the administration of Mr. Madison. The people of tho 
two sections came from the same stock, but in the course of four 
or five generations of descent their relative characters, according 
to Mr. Blaine, had entirely changed. The circumstances of 
frontier life had developed in Maine " a bluff, heai'ty, brave and 
generous people," v/ho, in respect to bravery and generosity, 
were of course entirely different from the people of Massachu- 
setts, and were " never understood or appreciated in Boston, 
then as now the governing power in Massachusetts." It is to 
these intrinsic differences of character as well as of political 
opinion that Mr. Blaine attributes the disposition of Maine 
to establish a separate Commonwealth, which was advocated 
warmly by Mr. King and opposed, we are given to understand, 
by the people of Massachusetts. The separation took place. 
Here Mr. Blaine comes in with a venomous attack, not on the 
leaders of the Federal party, not on the Federal party itself, 
which was then in the majority and shaped the policy of the 
Commonwealth, but on the PEOPi>E of Massachusetts. He says 
that the people of Maine were indebted for their success in ac- 
complishing this result, " not to the justice of their cause and 
the rigliteousness of their prayer, nor even to a liberal sense of 
fair dealing on the part of the people of Massachusetts, but 
nolely to the fear in the minds of the governing political party 
that their ascendency would be endangered if Maine should 
continue to be an integral portion of the State." That is to say, 
the PEOPLE of Massachusetts were insensible to the demands of 
justice, they were insensible to the demands of righteousness, 
they were insensible to the demands of fair dealing. They were 
actuated only by a blind ()l)edience to ])olitical leaders to pursue 
a systematic course of conduct toward Maine that was unfair, 



The Historic Judgments of MiiHsachimetts. 83 

unjust, and unx*ighteoiis. This is a foul slander on the di-ad, 
and the motive that inspired it was a liitter hatred of tlie liviii;^, 
— but for that part of the story we shall he intlehted to S.nator 
Hoar. 

Mr. Daw'cs first rose to rejdy, expressing regret that tiie vir- 
tues of Mr. King" eould not have l)eeii spread upon tlu- reeorils 
of the Senate without attempting to rake open the emhers of 
an already expired and buried jtolitieal animosity. Not to mar 
the proprieties of the occasion, i)y resenting with becoming in- 
dignation the chai'ge against the State he represented, Mr. 
Dawes contented himself with ])rotesting in the name of Massa- 
chusetts against the impression that Mr. lilaint''s history of her 
connection with Maine was a true history. While every man 
in the galleries and on the floor of the Senate was looking for 
an excoriation of the Senator from Maine Mr. Dawes subsided 
to the level of a protest, not in his own name, but in the name 
of Massachusetts. The Commonwealth is ol)ligeil to him for 
doing even so little as that. 

I will do Mr. Hoar the justice to say that he manifested to 
some extent a decided but well-restrained anger. lie hesitated 
from apprehension that it might not have been in good taste to 
deliver himself of his sentiments on such an occasion. He saiil 
in substance that the old Puritan spirit oft intolerance had never 
resulted in such an exhibition of envy, malice, and all unchari- 
tableness as had been that day witnessed on the floor of the 
Senate. I now quote from the "Congressi(mal Kecord " : ** I 
regret that the Senator from Maine should have been so dis- 
turbed by some recent historic judfjmcDts of the ])eopK! of Mas- 
sachusetts, that he should require their ancestors to bear tlu* 
burden not only of their ow n sins, but of their descendants'." 

Mr. Pdaine rei)lied to the effect that everything he had said 
was true ; but he said nothing as to the alleged cause of his dis- 
turbance. Then Mr. Dawes interjected an inquiry as to when 
and where Massachusetts, as a state, had ever made an unjia- 
triotic record. 

"I will tell you," rejoined ^Ir. Blaine, "now and hen*: Mas- 
sachusetts refused to pass a resolution thaid<ing one (»t in-r own 
naval officers for a victory. I can give more and graver in- 
stances till the sun sets, and for a senator from Massachusetts 
to rise here and pretend that His State did not i?i:isTLr, all 



84 Chapters for the Times. 

OVER WITH UNPATRIOTIC RECORDS, going clear up to the verge 
of treason, and, in the opinion of patriots of that clay, stepping 
one point beyond it, is a degree of bravery which it would have 
been well to show in the war and not reserved to this day." 

Here are two charges brought by this false braggart against 
your fathers, men of Massachusetts. The first is treason ; the 
second is cowardice ; and one is just as true as the other. I 
ask the Brothers Hoar, who have appealed in their electioneer- 
ing fervor to the memory of their father, was Samuel Hoar a 
traitor and a coward ? But it was at Samuel Hoar and men of 
the same way of thinking seventy years ago, that this shaft was 
aimed. If ever man li/ed who was brave and patriotic, — an 
exemplar of what Roman virtue and Roman valor were in the 
best days of Rome, — that man was Josiah Quincy, the very 
head and front of Massachusetts offending in the excited times 
to which Mr. Blaine referred. Will you desecrate his memory 
by indorsing the slanders of his deliberate def amer ? Were the 
Otises, the Kirklands, the Perkinses, the Lymans, the Shaws, 
the Sturgises, the Parsonses, the Lees, the Parkers, the Higgin- 
sons, the Pickerings, the Cabots, cowards and traitors? I 
pause on that word Cabot. Strike it out from your name, Mr. 
Lodge, if you have not the manhood to feel and resent this in- 
famous attack on the -anemories of the men who honored it. 

" Massachusetts," Mr. Blaine continued, " refused to let her 
soldiers march beyond the boundaries of their own State. 
There is another record for you." So far was that from being- 
true, it is the fact that for the invasion of Canada in the second 
campaiL,n of 1814, Massachusetts furnished more men than any 
other State in the Union. Thus is another lie nailed to the 
counter. 

Dawdling with the impertinent upstart, Mr. Dawes made al- 
lusion to the generosity of JNIassachusetts towards Maine, in as- 
signing to her the claim against the United States for expenses 
incurred in the war of 1812. 

Mr. Blaine refused to recognize this generosity, but made it 
the subject of a new assault on the character of the people of 
Massachusetts. lie said that she only assigned away a claim 
that she did not believe she could get ; but as soon as she found 
that Maine had got the money she turned around very wisely 
and said, " If we had known this we never should have passed 



Tlie Historic JudgmcntH of Massacliusctta. 85 

the vote." AVlicn (li<l she turn round and say this? and what 
warrant had Mr. lilaine for easting this slur on the people of 
this State? 

But not to go through with all that is olTensivc and irritat- 
ing in this inveetive, 1 will cito but a single passage fuithcr. 
Mr. Blaine had charged Mr. Hoar with being j)repared to do 
anything to bring about a U'coneiliation between the two sec- 
tions of the country. If Mr. Hoar was so prepared in 1878 it 
is a great pity that thii; disposition had not survived to 1884. 
One sees very little tendency towards such i)repaiation in Mr. 
Hoar's speeches during the present canvass. He has l)een go- 
ing backwards since the earlier period. But even on that occa- 
sion Mr. Hoar emphatically declared that there were several 
things he could not do even to accomplish a result so desirable 
as that of reconciliation. Mr. Hoar chai-ged that the Ku-Klu.x 
legislation of Congress had passed the House of Representa- 
tives, against " the 2)Iottings from the Speaker h chair ; " and 
averred that he never would have made such a speech as Mr. 
Blaine had made that day to accomi)lish any jjolitical residt 
whatever. He declared that the smiles and the applause Blaina 
expected to get from certain quarters in consequence of his at- 
tack on Massachusetts would come from men who entertained 
no feeling against her on account of the war of 181"2, but who 
hated her for her loyalty to freedom, and for her earnest desire 
to secure the "honest and pure admixistuatiox of this 

GOVERNMENT." 

Here I can pause, for it is hardly necessary even to allude to 
Mr. Blaine's apprehension that the debate ''might drivel off 
into the ludicrous and funny," —if ''Mr. Dawes shouhl have an 
opportimity to state some other facts." What is this, Mr. 
Dawes? Is it "bird-seed," oris it "decorations?" What a 
forgiving Christian ^Mr. Dawes must be to go in so strongly for 
a gentleman who has spoken in this fashion of a senator from 
Massachusetts ! Drivelling, forsooth ! In what terms could Mr. 
Blaine have formulated his contempt if after this he had heard 
Senator Dawes's ratification speech, and read his "spotless" 
telegrams? The Senator might have turned his other cheek to 
be smitten on his own account, —but for Massachusetts \ Good 
heavens — that ivas piling on the agony. 

Here we have the whole case before us; Blaine charging 



86 Chapters for the Times. 

the people of Massachusetts with treason and cowardice — Mr. 
Dawes protesting in a " bird-seed '' and " decorative " fashion 
— and Senator Hoar hurling in the teeth of the slanderer that 
it was on account of the historic judgments of Massachusetts, 
and her desire for " an honest and pure administration of the 
government," that Blaine had made her the subject of his viru- 
lent invectives. 

And what were the Historic Judgments referred to ? Clearly 
no other judgments than those which had been passed by the 
people of Massachusetts on the transactions, little and large, 
revealed in the Mulligan letters, and on Mr. Blaine's robust 
lying about them on the floor of the House. These are the very 
judgments, are they not, Mr. Hoar ? Are these Judgments 
" spent rockets," Governor Robinson ? Their opinions on these 
matters the people had put into judgments, and those judgments 
had become historic in 1878. We have Senator Hoar's word 
for it. The world knows what those judgments were. If the 
world had any reason to doubt as to the Historic Judgments 
referred to by Mr. Hoar at that time, all doubt would be re- 
moved by the perusal of a paragraph we copied from the home 
organ of Representative Rice and Senator Hoar, no longer ago 
than the 17th of April, 1884 : — 

[From the Worcester SpyJ] 

They forget the lamentable disclosures of the early days of June, 
187 G, when Mr. Blaine was brought to bay and made a splendid, au- 
dacious, but sadly unsatisfactory defense. Or, if they remember, it is 
but vaguely, forgetting how specific and terribly conclusive the evi- 
dence was, in the lack of any satisfactory explanation or denial. They 
forget that it then appeared from his own letters, whose authenticity 
was not questioned, that Mr. Blaine, while Speaker of the House, 
wrote to managers of a railroad company, dependent for its value 
upon the legislation of Congress, asking to be admitted on favorable 
terms to a share in their entcr])rise, and assuring them that he would 
not be a " dead-head " ; that some time after he wrote again, on the 
same subject, renewing his request, and assigning substantially the 
same reasons why he ought to receive the favor, and adding an ac- 
count of a service he had done to their road by ruling, as Speaker, 
while a bill affecting its value was pending ; thus distinctly inviting a 
reward for an official act which benefited a private corporation, con- 
duct not morally distinguishable from bribery. They forget that this 



The Historic Judjments of Massachusetts. 87 

is only one of several 0(ni:illy unpleasant disclosures made by the let- 
ters and other evidence produced hufore the cuniniittee inve»tij;atinj; 
I\Ir. Blaine's conduct, none of which he ever explained. He is ingen- 
ious and plausible, and could doubtless nuike an explanation that would 
satisfy those who wished to be satislied — if such an ex])lanution were 
possible to anybody. 

Does not the above paraG^raj)h betray all the car-marks of 
Senator Hoar? Can any man doubt that it was written, dic- 
tated, or inspired by him? And is not this just what (Jeorgo 
Frisbie Hoar intended when he replied on that memorable occa- 
sion to James Gillespie Blaine? 

And if all this is so, and these Historic Judj^nents have been 
three times pronounced and tlu-ee times entered u}) by the ])eoplo 
of Massachusetts, do the people of Massachusetts intend now to 
be beaten on the execution? 

Having three times rejected Mr. Blaine in convention, for 
the reason that they could not look to him for a pure and honest 
administration of the government, — and that reason truly and 
distinctly assigned by one of their own Senators in the Ca])itol 
of the United States, — how base and contemptible it would be 
in the people of Massachusetts to go back upon a record which 
they can neither recall nor deny, and which must stand forever 
as a monument to tlioir honor or tlieir shame! How base in 
them to kiss the rod that scourged them ; to cringe and fawn as 
their Senators have cringed and fawned at the feet of this cor- 
rupt jobber, this chronic and unremitting liar, this slanderer of 
their illustrious and patriotic fathers ! From the abject humilia- 
tion which such a reversal of their Historic Judgments and the 
historic reason for those judgments would fasten ui)on her — 
may God save the Commonwealth of Massachusetts ! 

October 11. 



FROM HARPER'S WEEKLY. 




THE PRACTICAL AGE. 

Old Lady. " He wants ter know ef he ken sell us the Life of J. G. Blaine." 
Old Farmer. "By lightnin', no! he can't sell us with any sech tliinp:. I looked it over 
yesterday, down to Neiglibor Jones's, an' tliere wa'n't no 'count of that rock business, no 'connt 
of how them Mulli<jans was lost, nothiu' 'bout them Percific bombs, nor any o' them things 
wots made his rcputnshnn." 

Book Agent. " lleckon this is the Berkshire farmer." 

[Published at the Valley Gleaner Office, Lee, Kcrksliire Co., Mass. 8 centf? single copies, including postage. 
$6.00 aa hundred copies ; $40.00 a thousand. Orders executed immediately.] 



CHAPTERS FOR THE TIMES. 
FOURTH PART. 

BY A BEHKSIIIKE FAKMEH. 



XVI. 

THE PRESIDENCY IN 1888. 

The New Ticket and the Administration. 

The letter of James G. Blaine to John Sergeant "SVise con- 
gratulating him on his nomination as Mahone's candidate for 
the governorship of Virginia is not to be dismissed as a mere idle 
compliment to a prominent party man. It means something 
more, and emphatically means that Mr. Blaine does not intend 
to be dropped out of the presidential canvass of 1888 by failing 
to show at every convenient opportunity that be still lives. 
The canvass began somewhat early, not to say prematurely, on 
both sides. It may be said to have opened when Mr. Blaine 
announced its issues to his friends and neighbors at Augusta, 
on first becoming sensible of his defeat. His speech on that oc- 
casion was designed to manifest that though defeated he wa» 
stronger than his party, and was the proper person for the op- 
position to rally upon as their leader and prospective candidate. 
It was in a tone calculated if not intended to warn off all Re- 
publican competitors. And there was good reason for his boast- 
ing. His canvass had been a marvelous one. None but an 
uncommonly strong and plucky man co\dd have stood uj) under 
the storm of contumely that raged so furiously' against him all 
last summer. That he should have been able tt» hold his friends 
together in the face of it was a wonder, but that he slionld have 
captured ex-Secretary Evarts, John Sherman and two lineal de- 
scendants of Roger, not one of whom loved him, and madi* them 
his lieutenants in three of llie most important States of the 
Union, is alone sufficient to prove his skill and power as a po- 






90 Chapters for the Times. 



litlcal leader. Without Judge Hoar's club of one hundred and 
fifty Boston gentlemen, and the brilliant political literature of 
Senator Hoar which Mr. Blaine complimented so highly at 
Worcester, Massachusetts might have given her electoral vote 
to Cleveland. If Mr. Evarts and Mr. Sherman had declined to 
give Mr. Blaine a certificate of character, scores and hundreds 
of good Republicans who allow other people to do their think- 
ing for them would have stayed away from the polls, in New 
York and in Ohio. These certificates survive the defeat, and 
it will not do for the lieutenants to act on the idea that the 
commander-in-chief is under ground just yet. 

Of the gentlemen to whom I have referred, Mr. Evarts is 
perhaps the most distinguished, and if we may credit our own 
Dawes, the whole State of New York was " wild with delight " 
" that she had strength given her " to make him a senator of the 
United States. Since this event took place, Mr. Evarts has 
eaten a number of good dinners — not more than usual — for 
as Lord Stowell ate always three hundred and sixty-five good 
dinners every year, and how many more his brother, the famous 
Chancellor, could not tell — so our great advocate dines numer- 
ously always, and dined with more than his ordinary energy 
about the time to which we have alluded. He was honored with 
a reception by the Republicans, Independents, Democrats and 
Mugwvmips of Yale College, and a reception by the Lotos Club 
of New York, and an entertainment by the Fort Orange Club 
of Albany ; and on all of these occasions and some others, he 
made speeches more or less notable for what he said on the po- 
litical situation, and much more notable perhaps for what he 
did not say. One of his most remarkable utterances at this 
period of " wild delight " was vouchsafed at a dinner of the 
Middlesex Club, where he was a special guest, when they cel- 
ebrated at Young's tavern in Boston the anniversary of the 
battle of Lexington. The rebellion of 1775 recalled the re- 
bellion of State rights men in 1861, and the rebellion of the 
Mugwumps in 1884 ; leading up naturally enough to the " ra- 
pacious combination now in the possession of power." It was 
time, in his judgment, that something should be done. Talking 
would not accomplish anything ; they must all be up and doing. 
Pie knew what the Republicans of New York were going to do 
about it, and if Massachusetts did not intend to do something, 



The Ptrsidrnrj u, 18SS. 01 

New York would do it without her. Soinctliinrj was to lu- doiic 
with " bauui'vs aud truinjx'ts ;" precisely wliat, Mr. Kvart.s did 
not state. But the liepublicau j)arty out of the olliees, he 8ai<l, 
were fishes out of water; and oue thin<^ to he done, it may he 
surmised, was to gi't them bat-k into the watrr aiiain. The bijr- 
gest fish of the whole shoal was in his mind all the timi-. but 
oddly enou!;h he never said lUaiue from the l)i'^inninu of his 
speech to the end of it. 

There is a great difference in the oratorical nu'thods of Mr. 
Blaine and Mr. Evarts. AVhen Mr. Blaine has anything; to say 
he says it, and you cannot fail to understand what lie means. 
When Mr. Blaine wants the jieople's votes, he tells the people 
he wants them, and tells them too that it is for their interest 
to give them to him. When Mr. Evarts wants the Middlesex 
Club to understand that there is great " determination," " senti- 
ment," " interest," " I must say enthusiasm in New York," fol- 
lowing if not growing out of his election as senator, which 
makes the Republicans unanimous in their intention to do some- 
thing, he leaves the Club to guess what it is the Republicans 
propose to do. 

Now if, as we surmise, the thing for them to do is to make the 
object of their enthusiasm a presidential candidate, the omission 
of any allusion to ]\Ir. Blaine in Mr. Evarts's speech is readily 
accounted for. The Republicans might do a worse thing than 
to nominate ISIr. Evarts. Indeed, I am not sure that they could 
do a better thing. He is not a bigot in any of his convictions. 
He can accommodate himself with wise facility to any goo<l 
thing going, that is likely to be uppermost, lie is not only 
always ready to drink the good wine of other people, but he has 
a cellar full of his own that lie dispenses with a liberal hospi- 
tality. At a public dinner he is always an anuising speaker, and 
(when he chooses to be) is reasonably intelligible. The raerubera 
of the Union Club, the University Club, and the Union League 
of New York would go for him to a man, without distinction of 
partj'. He is a better scholar than Logan, a better statesman, 
and in spite of Logan's large collection in biblical literature, I 
have no doubt that Evarts is the bettor theologian. Mr. Evarts 
is a husbandman, moreover, and on his Vermont farm of a 
thousand acres raises sheep and cattle for the B)ston market. 
He was an old time Whig too, of the Clay and ^^'ebster stamp. 



92 Chapters for the Times. 

aud I cannot but remember the courage and independence with 
which he came to the front at the great Castle Garden meet- 
ing in 1850, and did his best to strengthen the hands of Pres- 
ident Fillmore's administration in regard to the compromise 
measures. I shall certainly vote for giving Evarts the Repub- 
lican nomination. 

Let us pass to the next. I have seen some extracts from the 
Ohio papers recently, referring to Mr. John Sherman in con- 
nection with the presidency. The purport of them was, as well 
as I recollect, that Mr. Sherman was willing to serve his country, 
even at the expense of his personal convenience, in the presi- 
dency. 

Meanwhile, however, he goes for a "fruitful system of taxes," 
war on the rebel Brigadiers, a Republican senator from Ohio, 
and everything that Blaine goes for, except the Old Ticket. 

To this he is as much opposed as General Logan himself. 

We have witnessed in the leafy month of June two quite re- 
markable electioneering tours. The Vice-President in esse, and 
he who last year was the Vice-President in ^wsse, have been air- 
ing their vocabularies in New England. Mr. Hendricks was 
invited some time since to deliver an address before the law 
school of Yale College, and complied with it b}^ the composition 
of a studied panegyric on the Supreme Court of the United 
States. How far a good Democrat coukt go in eulogizing a 
tribunal that has rendered the recent remarkable decision in the 
Legal Tender Case, it is difficult to say. When the Court per- 
mitted itself to talk about the sovereignty inherent in the United 
States as a nation, it used language that is not to be found, I 
apprehend, in the " Federalist," or in any opinion of the Court 
in the days of Marshall, Story and Taney. But this is aside 
from the object of this chapter. 

Mr. Hendricks left Yale College without being made a Doc- 
tor of Laws, and hurried to Harvard, where he was hospitably 
entertained and listened to in his after-dinner observations with 
reasonable respect. The AVestern papers made the most of 
these honors, and the im2:)ression prevails widely in Indiana 
that the Democrats of New England sympathize with Mr. Hen- 
diicks's idea that the mistake of putting him at the tail of the 
Democratic ticket and not at the head is one that they will rec- 
tify the very next time with an enthusiasm of " wild delight." 



Tlie Presid, ncy in L'iSS. 98 

The drift of his speec-h at the dinner given liini by the Bay 
State Club at the Parker I louse was iu this directiou. He then 
gave iu considerable detail his notions on civil service reform, 
with the view of showing wlu rein lie dilYered fi-oni the ])resent 
administration, and suceeeded in endilematizing this by the lij^- 
ure of a Hickory Broom, with an intimation to his hearers that 
this is the sign in which they are to concjiu'r. He exj)ected to 
have no personal interest iu the next election, but to show how 
easily such an expectation might be thwai-ted he adde<l very 
naively that he had not expected to luive any })ers()nal interest 
in the last election, but that he accepted his ]H)sition tiiat he 
might not be disgraced by the loss of Indiana. But whether or 
no, he was iu future coming back oftener to Massachusetts, and 
hoped to come back after the next jiresidential election and 
bring with him the banner to the Bay State Club, and have 
them tell hun that " Massachusetts meets Indiana, and grasps 
her by the hand, and takes from her the banner that represents 
the Democracy of the same opinion for the purpose of reform 
in the public service," — with no other allusion to his chief, 
direct or indirect. 

Why he left this extraordinary sort of banner at home on his 
present travels, and brought only his own trumpet with hun, 
Mr. Hendricks did not explain. But in the absence of this ban- 
ner Mr. Hendricks held himself out for the nonce as the Vol- 
unteer leader of the Hickory Broom Democracy, involving the 
notion of a clean sweep on true Jacksouian princij)les. What 
wonder that in the Bay State Club there should have been a 
number of voices to exclaim at his modest disclaimer of any per- 
sonal interest in the next election, " Doubt it," " Head of the 
ticket next time." The object of the disclaimer was thus at- 
tained, and Mr. Hendricks nuiy be considere<l as the unani- 
mous nominee of all the Hickory Broomites in the Iky State 
Club. But if a candidate for the presidency should InH-onie 
amenable to the ci\'il service examination, it will be necessary 
for Mr. Hendricks to brush up his geogra]diical studies, for 
from his reported speech on this occasion it is evident that he 
is under the impression that New Haven and Y:de College 
are in Massachusetts. But this was after dinner. 

General Logan seems to be in the same box with Mr. Hen- 
dricks. Like Mr. Hendricks he was disinclined to take a see- 



94 Chapters for the Times. 

ond place on the ticket in 1884, and is entirely opposed to run- 
ning the okl ticket in 1888. We are told that the formation 
of Blaine and Logan clubs in Ohio and elsewhere is extremely 
distasteful to the general. He considers that he made a great 
sacrifice when he consented to lend the party the use of his au- 
gust name in a subordinate capacity to " strengthen the ticket." 
He did not wish to be disgraced, however, by having the party 
defeated in consequence of his refusing the place ; so like Mr. 
Hendricks he condescended, but gives out that this is the very 
last time he will play second fiddle to anybody. His motto now 
is aut Ccesar aut Nihil. So he too nmst come to Massachu- 
setts for a start, and accepted the invitation of the Norfolk 
County Club to a "banquet" at the Parker House, with the 
view of explaining his position. 

At this " banquet " the sachems and braves of the Republican 
party proper of the vicinage were present ; some two hundred 
of them, just about the same number and mostly of the same 
crowd that gathered about Mr. Blaine at the " banquet " at the 
Brunswick the evening before the last election. There were 
Governor Robinson, of course, and Senator Hoar, and A. W. 
Beard, and Henry Cabot Lodge, and Lieutenant Governor 
Ames, at both gatherings, in the places of honor. Let us recall 
a few incidents of those days and of the first feast. Senator 
Hoar was then fresh from Pittsfield, where he had made a 
great speech, in which he talked about a great many things and 
persons without alluding to Blaine. The audience became im- 
patient, for they wanted to hear what their " pious and jjatri- 
otic " senator had to say in defense of his inculpated candidate. 
" Why don't you mention Blaine ? " some one called out. Draw- 
ing up to his loftiest altitude, the eminent senator scornfully and 
indignantly replied : " My friend will have an opjiortunity to 
hear his name many times during the next eight years. His 
name will be appended to many proclamations and to many 
bills sent to him by Congress ! " When the senator soon after 
met the man of his idolatry at Worcester, " almost leaning upon 
him," as the papers told us, he said that " the hand of the pious 
and patriotic in the land was resting in benediction on Mr. 
Blaine's head." He took to ])rophesying again, and looked for- 
ward to a "lofty, serious, noble" administration of the presi- 
dency from the man on whose head the American peoi)le had 



The rnsidencij in ISSS. 05 

"showered the love and lionor^of the cainiKii;;!!. I'n-diction 
and panegyric being thns cxluiusted hy his clYuits at Titt-slu'ld 
and Worcester, tlie senator said nothing at the Brunswit-k '*han- 
quet," but left the nuinagenK-nt of that to his brotho.- Kbcnczer 
and Mr. Lodge. And even as the st-nator leaned on lUain*; at 
AVorcester, so Blaine entered tlie Brnnswiek " ban(|nct " luill, 
" leaning on tlie arm of Henry Cabot Lodge." But alas for the 
short memory of politicians I After all the leaning on ea«h 
other, all the embracing, all the att'ectionati' interlocking of arms 
in this "pious and patriotic " crowd at the Brunswick in the 
fall of 1884, who could have anticipated such an ostentatious 
display of very cold shoulders to Mr. Blaine at Parker's in the 
heated term of 1885 ? Logan, Long, and Lodge speechifying 
by the hour at a Republican " banquet," and not one of them 
with one word to say for Blaine any more than for Dr. Bur- 
chard — caring as little, to all seeming, for the luminary as for 
the extinguisher. Here was an opportunity such as Senator 
Hoar promised his Pittsfield friend, preeminently one of the 
" many times " when Blaine's name was to be heard over the 
land ; but alas, " Morality dumb too ! " Dumb as an oyster. 
His conscience perhaps asked him, " Why don't you nuMition 
Blaine ? " But he eased his mind by applying some frisky 
verses to his friend Cox, while there was ringing in his ears all 
the time a stanza much more apropos to the occasion : 

" Oh, no ! I never mention bini, 
His name is never heard ; 
My lips are now forbade to l)reathe 
That once familiar word ! " 

And yet Senator Hoar had committed himself to Blaine for 
tivo terms ; he was content with nothing short of c'ujht years of 
signing bills and })roclamati()ns ! Turning from Blaine now, he 
says " the king is dead." Turning to Logan, " Long live the 
king who shall be I " It miglii have been too much to cxjK'ct 
of the Middlesex Club, that at the l)anquet to Mr. Evarts they 
should have invited Mr. Blaine to break bread witli his distin- 
guished panegyrist. It was ^lerhaps an oversight, or Mr. Blaine 
was not within reach. But for the Norfolk Club unt to invito 
him to meet his eminent brother Bepubliean and late a.s8ociat«; 
on the presidential ticket can only be interpreted as a for- 
mal notice to quit. Mr. Blaine was at Augusta, or Bar Harbor 



96 Chapters for the Times. 

possibly, and could have been at Parker's at very short notice. 
He had been there before to meet Fisher on the Spencer-rifle 
business, and knew the way. But Mr. Blaine would have had 
something to say, and something to the purpose, curt and appo- 
site, that would have contrasted too sharply with Logan's scat- 
tering platitudes. Logan laid out to bag everything. He was 
after the " literary fellers," and the colored race, and the white 
laborers, and the pilgrims, and the Hoar family, and the re- 
formers, and the Republican party, and the educationists, and 
the protectionists, and free schools, and free speech, and free 
ballot ; with the view of demonstrating that to secure all these 
things and make all these people happy it was necessary and 
proper to place the country and the constitution in the keeping 
of General Logan. In this multifarious harangue he spoke 
about " all things and some others " — except the thing that 
was uppermost in his mind, the New Ticket. 

It seems that General Logan was at least an accessory to an- 
other snub at poor Mr. Blaine. We all remember (if we have 
not merely a politician's memory) the reception given to Mr. 
Blaine at the reunion of the Grand Army of the Republic at 
Old Orchard in Maine only one year ago. What an attraction 
he was to the occasion ! No fewer than fifteen thousand people 
gathered there to see him. The Grand Army men gave him 
a guard of honor to escort him in his passage from the hall to 
the tavern, followed by a crowd crazy to have a look at the 
next President and to shake hands with him. By alternate use 
of his right and left hands the victim of this intoxicating hom- 
age was able to get through with only a tithe of the worship- 
pers who craved this honor, before he was summoned to dinner, 
and thence, preceded by a brass band discoursing appropriate 
music, to the grove where the Grand Army of Maine and an 
immense concourse of spectators greeted him with enthusiastic 
shouts. He addressed the multitude with his usual aptness of 
speech, and dwelt particularly on the fact that under the "shel- 
tering folds " of the flag of the Union we should all dwell to- 
gether in unity, for the affecting and affectionate reason that 
" we are all brethren," even the brigadiers ! 

And what do we see in 1885 at the reunion of the same 
Grand Army of the Republic? Mr. Blaine received no invita- 
tion to be present. There was no room for him under the 



The Presidency/ in 1SS8. 97 

''sheltering folds " of the ihvj; — no "Hail to the Chirf " for 
him in the music of the brass band. Tin- lu-publican nKtid>erM 
of the committee on invitations did not think it would l)e " in 
line with the traditions and jjractices" of the (irand Army to 
ask Mr. Blaine. We are told that General Logan himsilf wa."* 
of the same opinion. General Logan took the ground that the 
Grand Army cannot give invitations to civilians to attend their 
reunions unless they hold high official positions. It seems that 
only very choice specimens of the upper ten thousand are good 
enough to be invited to these aristocratic rcimions, and even 
Mr. Blaine did not quite come up to the mark tiiis year, though 
an official position in expectancy was sufficient in 1884. I mu.st 
say that General Logan should have strained a point in favur 
of Mr. Blaine — considering. 

It may be apprehended that these Republican gentlemen are 
losing sight of the fact that tliey have to deal with a man who 
is a very much smarter politician than any of them. Tliey can- 
not afford to ignore Mr. Blaine. If they fail to invite him to 
their banquets, and to allude kindly to him in their speeches, 
he can find ready access to the people tlu-ough other channels 
than the Norfolk Club or the Middlesex Club. Even his ghost 
would be a hard thing to lay, but while he remains in the tlesh 
it is of little use for " pious and patriotic " Kejjublicans to nuike 
believe they think he is dead. 

It is curious enoush that both the Vice-Presidents, elect and 
non elect, should be in open revolt against their chief. The 
course of Mr. Hendricks's Postmaster Jones at Indianajwdis 
seems specially designed to precipitate a quarrel on the vivil 
service policy of the administration. Logan, too, must have his 
fiinsr at the President on this score, though we have not hcanl 
that the administration has interfered with the numerous broth- 
ers, sister, and brothers-in-law, cousins, ne])hew8, nieces, son 
and sons-in-law, and other dependents that General Ivogan 
deemed it a family duty to provide for at the public crib. I 
will volunteer a suggestion for the benefit of these self-assert- 
ino- candidates. There have alwavs been one or two engro»ing 
questions that have governed presidential elections. G latitude 
for their military services was the mains])ring of the elections 
of "Washington and Grant, and sustained th«'m through their 
administrations. The fate of John Adams wa-s determined by 
7 



98 Chapters for the Times. 

the alien and sedition laws, and the Virginia and Kentucky 
resolutions of 1798. Without going- into detail, the embargo, 
the war with England, strict and latitudinarian construction of 
the Constitution in the matter of the tariff and of internal im- 
provement (to say nothing of lighthouses of the sky), justice 
to General Jackson, the Bank of the United States, the sub- 
treasury, the annexation of Texas, the war with Mexico, the 
northwestern boundary, the compromise measures, free soil, 
abolition, the rebellion and the quelling of it, the tariff and the 
brigadiers on one side and the personality of the candidates on 
the other, with reference to a pure administration, — all these 
questions at different times, and only one or two of them at any 
particular time, have served as the shibboleths of party and de- 
termined the results of national elections. On the one great 
issue that now occupies the public mind President Cleveland 
has got the inside track. Circumstances have made him the 
representative of civil service reform. It has been committed 
to him — the task of uprooting the great evil of our times, the 
infamous doctrine that the offices of the country are the spoils 
of the victors, belonging of right to certain elected office-hold- 
ers, to be distributed at their dictation among their scouts, 
henchmen, lackeys, and strikers for the personal service they 
have rendered to their respective chiefs. The more that Logan 
and Hendricks agitate this question, in whatever aspect, the 
more they strengthen President Cleveland with the people. For 
the people, in their separate, peaceful, and friendly communi- 
ties, have no desire to see them made into into miniature hells 
for the benefit of the head devils of greedy factions. Civil ser- 
vice reform is the sheet anchor of the administration, and will 
hold the ship of state to its moorings in spite of the storms with 
which it is bound to be assailed. 

Several interesting questions have arisen since the inaugura- 
tion of President Cleveland, notably in the navy department, 
and Mr. Whitney has won golden oj^inions in all quarters for 
the intelligence and promptitude with which he has dealt with 
the Dolphin and Mr. Roach. The only mistake he has made 
was in consulting the attorney-general. The public mind of 
the North is disturbed by the idea of repudiating contracts of 
the government on any ground, but particularly on the ground 
that they are avoided by any act of omission or commission of 



Blaine's tSkinniish Line of 1,SS,S. 90 

the official agent of the govcinment. Mr. (larhinds li';;:il opin- 
ion upon any subject will hv exposed to scvcic criticisni, hut n<» 
opinion of his advising the repudiation of contracts can ever \h: 
accepted as of the slightest value. The Icgishiturc of Arl<ans;iH, 
that in 1883 jjroposed an amendment to their Constitution re- 
pudiating- some thirteen millions of the bonds of that Statf, 
reelected Mr. Garland as a member of the United SUites Sen- 
ate. It is to be presumed that ^Ir. Ciarhmd's views on rrpu- 
diation were in accord with those of the legislature which re- 
elected him. In our section of the country we regard a man 
who does not pay his debts as a dishonest man, in wiiom we can 
place no confidence. We look upon men who repudiate the 
debts of a town, county, or state, in precisely the same light. 
They are in the popular judgment dishonest and dishonored. 
Mr. Garland, therefore, as a repudiator must always be an in- 
cubus on the administration — a very heavy load for Mr. Cleve- 
land to carry. But this is too large a subject to be discussed 
incidentally in a closing paragraph. 

I shall have an opportunity of considering it more at length 
when commenting in a subsequent chapter ou the doings of the 
two recent Conventions in Virginia. 
August 1, 1885. 



XVII. 
Blaine's skirmish line of i8P8. 

The Empire State. — Repudiating Poprdntions and the Democrats. 
— The Old Dominion. 

On the skirmish line of 1888, as lie styles it, Mr. Blaine 
comes to the front again. In a recent interview, inviti'd for the 
occasion, he insisted that Mr. Evarts is the most desirable per- 
son for the Republicans to nominate as their candidate Un- the 
governorship of New York at the a]>i)roaching election. It is 
fair to give Mr. Blaine credit for jwlitieal sagacity, and I think 
he shows it in this suggestion. If Mr. Evarts should run and 
be elected, it puts New York in the Ke])ublii'an line again for 
the next presidential contest. If he shouhl run and fail, then 



100 Chapters for the Times. 

he would be extinguished as an aspirant, and resume his old 
position as aide on the staff of Blaine, commander-in-chief. 
Either way Mr. Blaine could not helj) making something quite 
worth his while. 

In this matter I think it safe to say ditto to Mr. Blaine. It 
cannot be denied that Mr. Evarts developed a good deal of 
popvdar strength in his canvass for the senatorship. The objec- 
tion that he is not a practical politician I consider quite a 
feather in his cap. By a practical politician is understood a 
man who stocks the primaries, packs the conventions, manl- 
pidates the address and resolutions, slips in the right officers 
and committees, signs recommendations for office, gets govern- 
ment jobs for his friends, and knows where to pick up the 
money for the boys to spend at election times. Mr. Evarts is 
no such man. And yet he showed himself somewhat practical 
when the Republican leaders in the legislature were laying pipe 
for the election of Levi P. Morton to the Senate of the United 
States. Mr. Evarts made it known that he was desirous of 
serving in that venerable body, and the voices that were raised 
in his behalf from all parts of the State were heard at Albany, 
and compelled the reluctant and recalcitrant politicians to elect 
him to the office he coveted, and is so well fitted to adorn. The 
practical politicians say that in view of the loss of Federal pat- 
ronage the Republicans must nominate for governor some prac- 
tical person who will come down with the dust handsomely, and 
who Icnows how to pass round the hat in Wall Street, and bring 
it back well filled with the yellow boys. They know who that 
man is, and it is not Evarts. When Evarts brings in his hat, 
there is nothing in it but brains, and that won't answer. 

No, — for once I must agree with Mr. Blaine. I admit that 
Mr. Blaine's recommendation is rather a drawback. But give 
him Blaine's twelve hundred clergymen, and Henry Ward 
Beecher of twelve hundred parson power, to boot, and I think 
Evarts would stand a better chance of election than any Money 
Bags the Republicans could bring into the field. 

But my present business is with other Republican friends of 
Mr. Blaine, and more particularly with the gentleman to whom 
he gave a certificate of pedigree and gentility two or three 
weeks ago, Mr. Wise. I had the pleasure of knowing this 
gentleman's father at the time when he was so distinguished 



Blame's Skirmish Line of ISSS. 101 

for the persistence and ability \vitli whicli, ou the floor of the 
House of Kepresentativcs, he denoiiiu'ccl exceutivf UMirpatiou 
and corruption, lie was a favorite with the Whij; y"uu^ men 
of the country, and if he had not stray«'d from thu lines to bo- 
come one of the corporal's j;uard of John Tyhr, there was uuth- 
ing in the gift of the party to which he nught not have reaijon- 
ably aspired. At a considerably later pi-riod I becanie much 
better acquainted with Mr. Jolm Sergeant of IMiihidelpiiiji, 
grandfather of the Mr. Wise who bears his name. J well re- 
member his mild and unassuming uumners, his pleus:int and 
instructive conversation, and the high esteem in which he was 
held by men of all parties for his political consistency, profes- 
sional ability, and personal honor. It is clear that as a guber- 
natorial candidate, Mr. Wise has exhibited mental and moral 
traits that never could have descended to him in the matijrnal 
line. And if the paternal A\ ise could revisit the " glimpses of 
the moon " and catch his son in such company as that which he 
keeps with Mahone and Kiddleberger, he would be " making 
night hideous," for him, with a witness, and the day likewise. 

The connecting link between Mr. Evarts and Mr. Wise is 
the patronizing approval of the Repulilican leader — for such I 
must still consider Mr. Blaiue, when I hear the synn)athizing 
responses of Senator Hoar and John Sherman to the j)assion- 
ate outcry of the defeated chieftain at Augusta. If i\Ir. Evarts 
shoidd receive the Republican nomination in New York, the 
canvass in that State will be an interesting one, and I may have 
a few words to say about it. Meanwhile I have something more 
to say of the fight in the Old Dominion. 

It is no easy matter to evolve from the chaos and eonfiLsion 
of that contest an intelligible commentary on it. Each party 
stigmatizes the other as " Repudiators." From this we may 
infer that both parties consider the ei)ithet a term of reproach. 
Readjusters flout their ])olitical eneuiies with the cry of " re- 
pudiators and asassius." The Funders return the compliment 
with the taunt of " thieves and repudiat<irs." It is the pro- 
verbial interchange of amenities l)et\veen the pot and the ket- 
tle, and as an abstract question we may well regard it in the 
philosophical spirit with which the good woman watched the 
scrimma£re between the bear and her husband. It is a matter 
of indifference which whips. 



102 Chapters for the Times. 

But when we reflect seriously on the state of things in Vir- 
ginia, it suggests a variety of issues, that are of great interest 
and importance to other States and all parties. Republican Fed- 
eral administrations have disgraced themselves by their open pat- 
ronage of Repudiation, whenever it promised to advance their 
interests by influencing votes. The Democratic party are now 
in possession of the Government. The change of a few hundred 
votes in the Northern States determined their snccess, and will 
be sufficient to compass their defeat. They are now brought 
face to face with the fact that almost all the so-called States 
that " went Democratic " are associations of repudiators. Pop- 
ulations that defraud their creditors can be styled " States " 
only by courtesy. Experimentally, and for a specific purpose, 
or as a choice of evils, honest men may be willing to intrust 
the government to a party whose main wing is composed of de- 
faulters and Jeremy Diddlers, but are not likely to make a per- 
manent association with them. If the Democratic party of 
Virginia, or of the South generally, have the remotest hope of 
reestablishing the influence their fathers had in the government 
of the country (an influence which they owed to circumstances 
that do not now exist), if they indulge the flattering idea that 
they have come to stay, they will have to change their policy in 
regard to non-payment of their State debts. On this point 
they have become utterly demoralized. It was a Democratic 
State government that initiated repudiation in Alabama. It 
was the Democratic party that affixed this stigma upon Georgia. 
It was the Democratic party that run Arkansas and Tennessee 
into this abyss. The repudiators of Geoi'gia and Arkansas are 
now represented in the cabinet by Lamar and Garland. I do 
not object to these gentlemen that they have been rebels. The 
right of secession or the right of nullification is all rotten non- 
sense. But the right of rebellion is another thing. It is an 
indefeasible right under circumstances that seem to make the 
exercise of it necessary, and of this necessity the rebel is the 
judge. The outcry about the " wickedness " of men, who had 
the same right to battle for the political dogmas they had been 
brought up in that we had to l)attle for putting them down, is 
unworthy of intelligent and honest men. Coming from parti- 
sans and candidates for popular suffrage like Sherman, Blaine, 
and Hoar, it provokes the obvious and well-founded retort that 



Blaine s Sklnnhh Line of ISSS. 10:] 

if these oontk'inon Imil liv.'il in the South insti'u.l of i\\v North 
they wouhl have eateivd for the South. 'in vofr :iii,l (i.nn.l a^ 
the most rebellious of the rehcls. 

It is no longer a tenable obji^ctiou to a man tlial in- has l)een 
a rebel. We can welcome rebels into i)oliti(al ftllo\vshi}> and 
personal friendship. But to imagine that the honorable and 
debt-paying- States of this Union propose to keep its groat gov- 
ernment in the hands of a knot of seedy and insolvent " sover- 
eigns " who defrand their creditors and pass their time in eva- 
ding executions and dodging the constal>h', is a vain and wicked 
imagination. There is no sueii thing in the books. No party 
can acquire more than an accidental and precarious a-scendency 
in this country that is largely encumbered with members who 
disavow the obligation of State conti-acts and refuse the iionest 
payment of State debts. It was solely on issues of personal and 
political trustworthiness, as between Blaine and Cleveland, that 
the Republican party was defeated in the late presidential elec- 
tion. Questions of moral principle will enter into the next 
election as in the last, and it will be incumbent on the Democ- 
racy to bring their notions of pecuniary honesty into line witli 
the advanced sentiments on the duties and responsibilities of 
rulers, that have acquired and secured for Mr. Cleveland tlie 
sincere cooperation of the ^Mugwumps. 

The relations of the two jiarties in Virginia to the hist de- 
cision of the Supreme Court of the United States on the coupon 
question form an equally interesting feature of the canvass with 
the policy of readjustment or defalcation, ^^'hen tlie decision 
was pronounced in the case of Poindexter v. (ireenhow, enfor- 
cing the receivability of coupons for taxes, the Keadjusters were 
represented as being in great excitemcut about it, and agreed 
that it gave IMahone his chauee to regain wliat he had lost in 
Virginia. j\Ir. Wise was rei)orted at that time to liave said : 
'•Mahone will this time lead liis own forces. He will !).• nom- 
inated next month by a Repul)lican convention for governor on 
a platform of the most aggressive character. Alrea<ly a i)lan of 
action has been agi-eed upon, and the cry is to be that a ])aekod 
com-t has made an unconstitutional decision. The State rights 
doctrine, dear to Virginia, has been trampled under f(M)t, and 
resistance to it will be advocated by every means short of actual 
war." Mr. Wise further declared that he was pleased with the 



104 Chapters for the Times. 

decision, that it would lead to a very bitter fight, and that Ma- 
hone would carry with him a majority of the white people of 
Virginia, and that his majority would not be less than 20,000. 
Attention was to be drawn away from the negro question as far 
as possible, and the issue was to be the Eiddleberger coupon- 
killer and Mahone to execute it. 

Such was the programme of the Eeadjusters in April, and if 
we can believe the newspapers and the politicians, a state of 
things was revealed in the Old Dominion that fully justified it. 
From tide-water to the Blue Ridge, Virginia was agitated and 
convulsed. The entire colored population of Republican and 
non-paying proclivities was up in arms. All the robbers of hen 
roosts, all the sneak thieves, all the purloiuers of jewehy in 
hotel bed-rooms, all the appropriators of overcoats in front 
halls, all the inmates of the penitentiaries, and all the candi- 
dates for punitive seclusion, were boiling over with a fiery and 
scarlet indignation. All the lineal descendants of the imported 
convicts of two centuries ago with long and loud imprecations 
were swearing perpetual fidelity to the memories and traditions 
of their fathers. Every grog-shop in Richmond, and every 
cross-road grocery in the State, teemed with crowds of thirsty 
patriots who were imanimously in favor of liberty or death. 
Mahone, Riddleberger, Wise, and Cameron were supposed to be 
scouring the country, carrying the fiery cross and the black flag, 
with frenzied outcries, and threats of vengeance against the 
bloated bondholders and the Supreme Court of the United 
States. 

The right to defraud creditors was an inalienable right of 
sovereignty, and without it sovereignty was of no account. 

But when the Republican convention met in July this ex- 
citement had subsided. By this time its members had reached 
the conclusion that Mahone would not answer as a candidate. 
The colored voters shook their heads and whispered that they 
wanted a gem'man. It was said to be the "proud boast" of 
Vu'ginians that a gubernational candidate must be a gentleman ; 
and poor ]\Iahone did not come in that category. But Wise 
was a real gentleman. He could talk to the coloi'ed voters as 
no other man except one of their own number. He could in- 
terest tlie colored voters by throNving glass globes in the air and 
shattering them with an accuracy and dexterity of aim that 



Blaine" 8 Skirmish Line of 1SS8. 105 

captivated all spectators. He couUl tell stories aiul sinjj k(iii<;h 
in the negro dialect with a cleverness that wouhl distin;^ui.sh 
him as a " bright, partieidai- " star in any conipany of ne^ro 
minstrels in the country, lie could make longer stinuj) speeches 
and more of them than any other man in the State, without im- 
pairing his wind. lie coidd turn a somersault (piicker antl of- 
tencr than one of Barnum's clowns, cjuieker and oftener than 
Mahone himself. Sambo in " Uncle Tom's Cabin " could not 
make a saucier retort or utter a sharj)er gibe. There was no 
end of his accomplishments in this way. .Vnd then as for non- 
payments, he could be relied on as the very repudiator of rcpudi- 
ators, every time. The Funders only i)retended to be dishonest 
— they acquiesced in repudiation, but they did not believe in it; 
whereas he believed in it to the death. What gi-eater proofs 
could he give than all these of being a gentleman? And then 
in what a gentlemanly way he afterwards spoke of his rival 
candidate. The nomination suited him exactly. Lee was the 
easiest man to beat. Lee would never have been heard <»f if he 
had not been the nephew of his uncle. Then as the culmination 
of abuse, the final and fatal objection, Lee had written a letter 
in 1877 advocating payment of the State debt, and this was 
something that woukl not go down in Virginia, and that would 
be hard to explain ! Certainly, Wise's deportment, language, and 
principles are those of a perfect gentleman, and they have been 
improving prodigiously since he joined in the infamt»us con- 
spiracy of Mahone to subjugate the Old Dominion by the adroit 
management of the negro voters. A South Carolina gentleman, 
who was traveling in Virginia during tlie canvass that resulted 
in the Readjuster victory, informs me that he attended muncrous 
meetings of the ]\Iahonites, and that everywhere the negroes 
were relied on as the most jiotent factor in the canvass. lie 
heard the white orators telling them that the Stjito was groaning 
under a heavy debt, and that the Democrats wanted to i)ay it. 
The orators explained to the colored voters that the State wa.s a 
sovereig-n, and that sovereigns need not pay their debts unless 
they choose to do so; and that to pay money the State could not 
be compelled to pay was folly and ruination. liesides, thi.s 
enormous debt was the White Men's debt. It had been en- 
tirely contracted before the war and while the colored men 
were slaves, and it was tyranny to tax them to pay a debt which 



106 Chapters for the Times. 

they had no voice or vote in creating. The Democrats intended 
to tax the colored men for the payment of this debt, and the 
colored men should vote for candidates who would repudiate 
the greater part of it, and make efficient arrangements not to 
pay the rest. 

Mahone and his co-conspirators by arguments of this kind 
succeeded in convincing the negro voters, and boasted that they 
had them solid on the question of not paying. The meaner 
classes of white men chimed in with this style of argument, and 
from that time the course of the State has been downwards — 
downwards — till it has reached a plane where the contest be- 
tween the parties turns on the most expedient methods of de- 
frauding the creditors of the State, and the most ingenious de- 
vices for evading its legal responsibilities by nullifying the 
judgments of the Supreme Court of the United States. 

The way in which this debt was contracted, and the way in 
which it has been repudiated, will furnish toj)ics for subsequent 
chapters. This discussion may not be entertaining, but it has 
an important bearing on the relations of the paying and non- 
paying States to each other, to j)olitical parties, to the federal 
judiciary and the Democratic administration. 

September 1, 1885. 



XVIII. 

THE VIRGINIA CANVASS. 

The Creation of the Virginia Debt — Repudiation — Moses and 

Mahone. 

From the preeminent influence which Virginia formerly ex- 
ercised in public affairs, even her local elections, ever since I can 
remember anything of politics, have been watched with great 
interest in other States. The present canvass between Lee and 
Wise excites perhaps more than ordinary attention. For the 
first time in history the Federal administration has no finger in 
the pie. It leaves the citizens of the State to solve the question 
whether or not they propose to remain the vassals of Billy Ma- 
hone. From the ominous growls of the Republican bosses in 
the North, we are led to believe that they are not entirely satis- 



The ]'i'ri/ini(i Canvass. 107 

fied with the practical working of tlio Foiirk-i'Mili Aiiu utliumt, 
and begin to entertain surioiis douhts of its wisdom, jiislicf, and 
particularly of its jjoliey. It loolvs very mneli as if tlu-y wero 
contemplating an agitation for its ri'i)eal. This luaki-s ns anx- 
ions to ascertain if Wise can aeconiplisli las hrag of hurHng a 
solid colunni of 120,000 eohn-ed voters against the i)arty that 
has for nearly a eentnry wirkled the political ])ower of the Ohl 
Dominion. Abont all this, as good old Mr. IJitcliie was fond 
of writing, )ioi(S verrons. Now about Kepudiation, and what 
led to it. 

Fifty years ago Virginia had no means of marketing lier agri- 
cultural products, except by hauling them in heavy and expen- 
sive wagons over roads that were almost impassable during the 
season when the farmers could apply themselves to this indis- 
pensable labor. It cost from a fifth to a third of the value of 
their crops to transport them to points where they could be 
sold. In the tobacco counties the methods were very primitive. 
The crop was packed in tight hogsheads, sjiikes were driven 
into both ends and attached to shafts, and in this way nudes 
dragged them through muddy roads to remote markets. In all 
sections of the State, the travel of j)assengers was equally incon- 
venient and expensive. 

This style of transportation and travel v.'as anything ]>ut sat- 
isfactory to the planters, and the people in all (piarters of the 
Commonwealth called clamorously on their legislature for im- 
proved methods, and for the investment of such money as they 
could raise on the public credit in the construction of better 
turnpikes, and in canals and railroads. Alexander II. II. 
Stuart, of Augusta County, then a young and able member of 
the House of Delegates, was notably the j>ioneer of this great 
work. His report on the subject — made as chairman of the 
committee to wliich it was referred — pointed out all the great 
lines of improvement which have since bei'U constructed. Tlio 
scheme was defeated at the time by a small majority, but a be- 
ginning was made in a small way by the construction of two 
macadamized roads, for one of which the State i)aid the entire 
cost from its not overflowing treasury. 

The advantacjes resulting from these works were t«x) market! 
and obvious not to be followed up, and in the twenty years en- 
suing, the universal sentiment of both the ^Vhig and Democratic 



108 Chapters for the Times. 

parties was strongly enlisted in tlie prosecution of the system of 
internal improvements. Its results were so beneficial and profi- 
table to the farmers and traveling community that in eastern 
Virginia not a voice was raised against the system, though the 
complaint was sometimes heard from the j^eople west of the 
mountains that they were being taxed for enterprises of which 
their tide-water brethren were reaping the advantages. At all 
events, a system v/as ci'eated which largely increased the values 
of property all over the State, and the burthen of the taxation 
for payment of accruing interest was regarded as insignificant in 
view of the resulting benefits. Before the outbreak of the civil 
war and before the division of her domain, Virginia had issued 
her bonds for a large amount of money which she had safely and 
wisely invested in the classes of improvement below named : 

For RaUroads 818,584,928.28 

Canals and Navigation Companies . . . 12,234,110.30 

Plank Road Companies 399,735.41 

Turnpike Companies 2,371,009.10 

Bridge Ccmpanies 104,471.66 

State Roads 1,835,828.83 



$35,520,109.59 

More than an hundred statutes were passed at different times 
to carry out the various parts of this system, so that the people 
of the State through their agents had the opportunity of express- 
ing their will on almost every item comprising the ultimate in- 
debtedness. There were never State obligations entered into 
more deliberately, with a more perfect understanding on the 
part of the constituency, or with a more universal assent. And 
never did State or individual get better money's worth than 
Virginia got for her expenditure in these woi'ks. 

At the close of the civil war, the legislature at once ad- 
dressed itself to the ascertainment of the jirecise extent of the 
indebtedness of Virginia, with the view of adjusting the portion 
of the liability equitably attaching to "West Virginia. The en- 
tire debt of the old Commonwealth amounted on the first of 
January, 1867, to upwai'ds of forty-three millions of dollars. 
The Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia decided that both 
Virginia and West Virginia were bound for the whole of this 
indebtedness. Virginia was willing to assume what she con- 
sidered her fair proportion of it, which she estimated at two 



TJie Virginia Canvass. 109 

thirds of tlio entire debt. Indeed West Vir«,nniii hy the tcmis 
of the separation from the old Common wealtli agreed to assiaao 
one third of the debt at that time existinj^; but to this day wo 
look in vain for any such assmnption, or any movement eon- 
temphiting the redemption of her j)romise. 

It was not till the session of the legislature of 1870-71 that 
any important step was taken by Virj^inia towards the adjust- 
ment and funding of the State debt and making j)rovisi«)n for 
its payment. Early in that session a lesolutidu wjis introdueed, 
authorizing the governor to tender to AVest Virginia a j)roposi- 
tion for referrmg to arbitration the apportionment of the exist- 
ing pnblie debt to the respective States, During the disi-ussion 
of this resolution not a word was uttered intimating repudiation. 
It passed the House of Delegates unanimously. It i)assed the 
Senate, thirty-five members being present, with only four dis- 
senting voices, and received the signature of the governor. No 
sooner was this matter thus disposed of than a motion was made 
contemplating a "compromise" of the debt at fifty cents on the 
dollar. This was the first public suggestion of anything like 
repudiation, and it was disguised under the title of compromise. 
But even this mild approach to the objective point was fnnvned 
upon by the legislature, and an act was passed, hy large nuxjori- 
ties in both Houses, providing for the issue of new bonds to the 
amount of two thirds of the existing debt, and of deferred cer- 
tificates for the other third; the latter to be jjrovided for, prin- 
cipal and interest, in accordance with such final settlement aa 
might be made with West Virginia. 

Of these deferred certificates no notice has since been t;ikeu 
by either State, and we may here dismiss the consideration of 
this part of the transaction, as without any immediate bearing 
on our present purpose. The debt of West Mrginia sUuuls on 
pecidiar grounds, which we need not now discuss. V irginia 
consunnnated a transaction with her creditors in pursuance of 
which they accepted with alacrity the new bonds, and tiie de- 
ferred certificates ; a compromise free from the taint of rej)udi- 
ation, and one which her creditors were at liberty to accept or 
decline. To make it more agreeable to the creditors, the legis- 
lature pledged the State faith for the punctual j)aymcnt of inter- 
ests half-yearly on the new btjiuls, and as an additional guaran- 
tee of that payment contracted that the matured interest coupons 



110 Chapters for the Times. 

should be received in absolute payment of all taxes and dues to 
the Commonwealth. Notwithstanding the indefinite postpone- 
ment of one third of the debt, no bondholder interposed any ob- 
jection, and the funding process begun in July went on with 
great rapidity. In less than six months there had been funded 
in bonds and certifiicates upwards of twenty-eight millions of 
dollars. 

This settlement is what is known in Virginia politics as the 
Funding Act. The party favoring it have since been assailed 
with the epithet of Funders. When all other disparaging names 
have failed to convey an adequate idea of a man's depravity, the 
repudiators cap the climax by describing the wicked person as 
a Funder ; and by this they mean a person who at one time was 
so blind to the real sentiments of the people of Virginia as to 
imagine that they would acquiesce in the honest payment of 
their debts. Mr. Wise thinks this the crowning disqualifica- 
tion of Fitz-Hugh Lee. It is the unpardonable sin. But Mr. 
Lee says that he is no more in favor of paying than Mr. Wise 
is, if the Virginians prefer to defraud their creditors. 

Notwithstanding the strong majority by which the Funding 
Act was j)assed in both houses, it became the subject of much 
passionate denunciation among the people, and furnished the 
topic of discussion in the canvass that followed for the election 
of members of the legislature. The Republican convention 
arraigned the Democrats for passing a bill that was at once un- 
necessary and oppressive. When the legislature met at Rich- 
mond in December, 1871, it was soon apparent that funding was 
not in favor. A joint resolution discontinuing the issue of 
bonds required to be issued by the Funding Act presently 
passed both houses almost by acclamation. It was vetoed by 
Governor Walker, and again passed, over the veto, by the re- 
quisite majority. The governor denounced the resolution as 
unjust, vuiwise, and destructive of all confidence in the integrity 
of the iieoplc, and the legislature still declared that they had 
no intention of repudiating the debt. They only insisted that 
until the exact amount that belonged to Virginia could be de- 
termined, Virginia ought not to pay anything. In view of the 
suspended debt and the treatment of it by the two Common- 
wealths, this postponement of the whole debt of Virginia till 
West Virginia consents to assume thirteen millions of it was 
equivalent to an adjournment sine die. 



Tlie Virginia Canvass. 1 1 1 

The effect of the h\<;ishiti()n of 1872 \v;is to susumd thi; oja-ni- 
tioii of the Fuiuliug- Act until new foupons could hv. |)iint4'(l in 
which the clause was stri;?ken out that made them receivable in 
payment of all taxes, debts, and dues and demands of the Stale. 
The act imposing- taxes for the year also jjrovided for retaining 
out of all interest payable at the treasury on all State bonds 
" a tax equal in amount to fifty cents on the hundred dollars 
market value of the bomls from which such interest is derived." 
This led to a protest from the foreign bondholders, ami to 
suits to test the constitutionality of such legislation. 

The questions submitted to the Supreme Court of the State on 
the act of 1871 were iu substance : 1. Whether that act created 
a valid contract of the State with such bondholders as accepted 
its terms, to receive the coupons for taxes ; and 2. AVhether 
the refusal to receive the coupons impaired the obligation of this 
contract. The Supreme Court of Virginia answered both ques- 
tions in the affirmative. Judge Bouldin was of the oj)inion that 
the act of 1872 was repugnant to the Constitution of the State 
and to that of the United States, and that a temporary relief 
from pecuniary pressure would be too dearly bought at the price 
of the broken faith of Virginia. Judge Anderson and Judge 
Christian assented to the decision delivered by Juilge liouldin. 
There was one dissenting voice on the bench. Judge Staples 
did not believe that any legislature could l)ind succeding legis- 
latures in the manner contemplated by the Funding Act. He 
thought the questions involved of duty and ol)ligation belonged 
to the legislature to decide, and observed, with amiable credu- 
lity, in the most inconsequent judicial dictum I remember to 
have met with : " Virginia's representatives will not fail to pre- 
serve untarnished Virginia's honor." In another recent case 
the Court had declared, Judge Christian delivering the oj)in- 
ion, ''T7ie inviolahiUty of co?itracts, public and jmvate., in the 
foundation of all solid pror/rcss, and the eorner stone of all 
the forms of civilized socictij,'' — words that ought to be writ- 
ten on tablets of stone and set up in all the legislative fp^ve- 
yards where the honor and good faith of repudiating sovereigns 
are buried. 

In 1873 another step was taken in the direction of repudia- 
tion. The act pro\nding for the i)aymcnt of interest on the 
public debt cut down the money j)ayments, and authorized the 



112 Chapters for the Times. 

issue of non-interest bearing certificates for the portion unpaid. 
" These amounts," the act says, are " all the Commonwealth is 
able to pay at this time.'''' The Republican convention, one 
half of whose delegates were colored, adopted resolutions con- 
demning all forms of repudiation — condemning the funding 
bill as unjust, impolitic, and oppressive, and enacted solely in 
the interest of bondholders — and demanding the submission 
of the questions touching the financial obligations of West Vir- 
ginia to the Supreme Court of the United States. The Demo- 
crats, or Conservatives as they now called themselves, in their 
convention of the year said nothing on the subject, but they re- 
solved unanimously that the honor, etc., of the State must rest 
on the virtue, etc., of the people. There they left honor and 
virtue for the present. 

In pursuance of the mandates of a joint resolution of the 
legislature of 1874, a conference was held at Richmond in No- 
vember of that year, between the governor and treasurer of the 
State and its bondholders, for the purpose of securing the re- 
spective rights and interests of the parties. Governor Kemper 
explained at the conference that the legislature of 1871 had 
injudiciously promised more than Virginia could perform, but 
averred that under the new tax laws the State would be able to 
pay four per cent, on the whole of the now funded debt, and 
only four per cent, under circumstances then existing. The re- 
sult of this explanation was the unanimous adoption by the par- 
ties to the conference of resolutions setting fortli that from ac- 
.cruing revenues the State ought to set apart the moneys requi- 
site to pay four per cent, on her bonds, issue non-interest bear- 
ing certificates for the unpaid two per cent., and resume the full 
payment of six per cent, as soon as practicable. This transac- 
tion contemplated the surrender of the tax-receivable coupons 
as they fell due, and the payment of the two per cent, interest 
every half year. The treasurer of the State at this time was 
the much respected R. T. M. Hunter, a man of abilitj^ experi- 
ence in affairs, and unsullied personal honor. A negotiation 
conducted on the part of the State by that gentleman and the 
conservative Governor Kemper could not result in a discredita- 
ble arrangement. 

During the administration of Governor Kemper sincere efforts 
were earnestlv made to increase the revenues of the State, and to 



The Virginia Canvass. 113 

make provision for the ])uynu'nt of iiccniiii^^ intcn'st on tin* <lt'l)t. 
The legislature in 1877 passed an important measur*' to this 
end in tlie Moft'att Kegistor Law, the ohject of which was to im- 
pose and collect a tax on the juivilege of selling wine, ardent 
spirits, malt or mixed li(piors, anil the revenue to be derived 
from that source was estimated at half a million of dollars, and 
if fairly collected this was a very moderate estimate f«)r a thirsty 
people. The Democratic convention of the year adopted resolu- 
tions urging reduction in exi)enditures and return to the ances- 
tral methods of economy and frugality. One of the ri-solutious 
rang with such words as the glorious history of Virginia, etc., 
jiroud of her name and fame, etc., scorn to repudiate, etc., ])re- 
serve inviolate jjublic faith and credit, etc., just and honorable, 
etc. ; but this is ancient history, and the Democrats under Ma- 
hone's discipline have grown ashamed of it and disavow man- 
fully all the intentions implied in these gorgeous parts of 
speech. 

Negotiations formal and informal continued to go on between 
the State and its creditors; sundry propositions were introduced 
in the legislature that were reported on and came to nothing, 
till another Funding bill known as the M'Culloch bill, and en- 
titled, " An Act to provide a settlement of the Public Debt," 
came in force on March 28, 1879. This Act contemplated no 
re})udiation. It recognized the entire debt, but gave creditors 
the option to exchange their present securities for non-taxable 
bonds, with tax-receivable coupons or certificates, bearing inter- 
est of three per cent, for ten years, four per cent, for the next 
twenty, and five per cent, for the last ten years. Acceptance 
of certificates for West Virginia's third was to l)e taken as an 
absolute release of Virginia fi-om any lia1)ility on account of 
such certificates. The bondholders did not hesitate to accept 
the terms offered by this Act, as within four months of its final 
passage, bonds and securities to the amount of twelve millions 
of dollars had been sent in for conversion. Within six months 
there had been actually funded at three per cent. *7,1>44.314. 
If the two thirds of the joint debt had been thus refunded, Vir- 
ginia would have been absolved from West Virginia's ix»rti<»n 
of it, and would have been liable to an annual interest of only 
$936,812. 

Favorable as this proposition was and insignificant as this 



11-1 Chapters for the Thnes. 

burden would have been on a taxable property of $353,000,000, 
it did not suit the men who thought the proper thing was to 
reduce both princiiDal and interest, as an entering wedge to the 
entire repudiation of both. An agitation was started, before the 
passage of this Act, for its repeal. It was a plain case for a 
combination of dishonest men of all parties to obtain political 
power by making common cause against the debt-payers. Men 
who were aiming by a fair agreement to cut down merely the 
interest on the debt stood no chance whatever in a contest witli 
a gang of knaves who taught the people that they were not to 
be "dictated to" by their creditors, but that they should pay 
just as much of their debts as they had a mind to, and not a 
cent more, and if their creditors did not take that they should 
not get anything. That was the talk, and when the next legis- 
lature took their seats at Richmond, the debt-payers were no- 
where, and Mahone and lliddleberger were on top. 

The next chapter in this financial chronicle which now inter- 
ests us is the repudiating bill of March, 1880, impudently en- 
titled " an Act to reestablish the pviblic credit of the State." 
This bill i3roi5osed in effect to repudiate -$13,000,000 of the 
recognized State debt ; to cut off one half of the interest paya- 
ble on the residue, and make nearly all of the reduced interest 
on that residue dependent on the State, city, and county taxa- 
tion. The Democratic governor, HoUiday, returned this bill to 
the Senate ; refusing to approve it on the ground that it violated 
the Constitution of the State and of the United States, and was 
repugnant to aU the traditions which liad given the Common- 
wealth of Virginia her high and honorable position among the 
States. In his message the governor dwelt upon the circum- 
stances under which the debt was contracted, and the fact that 
134,000,000 of the money had been expended within the pres- 
ent borders of the State. He reminded the legislature that for 
the repayment of this money Virginia had pledged " the faith 
of the State to jjrovide sufficient funds, and for that purpose to 
levy adequate taxes." He pointed out that the consideration of 
the debt still survives, and " increases manifold the values of 
property throughout the State," and that, without the means of 
transit and transportation tliis money had provided, great por- 
tions of Virginia woidd be to this day a waste. He recalled the 
fact that four times after the close of the civil war, the Gen- 



Tlie Virginia Canvass. 115 

eral Assembly of the State unanimously reartirmed the validitv 
of the ol)li<;ation. The new Constitution admitted its sanctity. 
The first Assembly under that (..'oustitution passed an act recog- 
niziug it in its entirety. The Asseml)ly of 1877 at its second 
session (1878) passed an act in settlement, based on the con- 
sent of the creditors, which was reganU'd by tlic outsi(hi world 
as fair and honorable. And to this recai)itulation of the facts 
showing the scandalous dishonesty of the bill vetoed, the gov- 
ernor added that if the law of 1877 liad not bei-n obstructed in 
its operation, it would have provided amply for the interest on 
the new bonds and soon have left a siuplus in the treasury. 
Such was the opinion also of the father of the improvement 
system, the venerable A. II. II. Stuart, of Augusta County, who 
averred in his parting address to his constituents in 1877 that 
there was no difficulty whatever in meeting all the obligations 
of Virginia by an honest api)lication of the revenue of the State 
to the objects for which it was pledged. Increase of taxation 
from fifty cents to sLxty-six cents on the one lumdred dollars 
would of itself accom])lish the result. An increase of the capi- 
tation tax from one to two dollars for the supjjort of the schools, 
and the passage of Governor Letcher's dog law, would in his 
judgment have solved all the financial difficulties of the State 
without any increase of the personal or real taxes. 

The message of Governor Ilolliday had the ring of sterling 
metal in it. The time had come, however, which John Mar- 
shall looked forward to nearly a hundred years before, but 
which never actually arrived till the days of Mahone and Kid- 
dleberger. "Seriously,"' wrote the typical ^'irginian in 17i>2 to 
his friend Archibald Stuart, — " seriously, there apjjcars to me 
every day to be more damned rascality in the world than there 
was the day before ; and I do verily begin to thiidc that ])lain, 
downright honesty and unintriguing integrity will be kicked 
out of doors." "Damned rascality" is perha])s not a judicial 
phrase, but we might look through a " Webster Unabridged " 
from A to Izzard, without finding two other words that would 
cover the present case so completely. On this point I should 
have liked to take the judgment of two other great Virginians 
who died when the Old Dominion was at the meridian of its 
honorable fame, John Taylor of Caroline and John Kandolph of 
Koanoke. What would those men have , said to the individual 



116 Chapters for the Times. 

whom his admirers describe as the earliest and ablest apostle 
of Repudiation ! 

When repudiation of State indebtedness was adopted as the 
basis of party organization and action, no more fit representative 
of the " damned rascality " could be found for Virginia in the 
United States Senate than William Mahone. This is the indi- 
vidual to whom the friends of Mr. Blaine sometime caressingly 
alluded during the late presidential canvass as the " little Napo- 
leon of Readjustment." For Mahone's vote in the Senate and 
for the remote chance of securing the vote of Virginia for the 
Republican candidate for the presidency, the Republican ad- 
ministration condoned Mahone's infamous policy on the State 
debt questions, and lent its official and efficient aid in demoral- 
izing and humiliating a great commonwealth. This was a 
severe blow at the prestige of the Republican party. It had 
suffered somewhat from the juggling of the visiting statesmen 
with the Louisiana returning board. It had been still more im- 
paired by the prompt and general compensation of these gentle- 
men, according to their service and standing, with offices of 
graduated importance, from a place in the custom-house to a for- 
eign mission or a seat in the Cabinet. Oakes Ames's memoran- 
dum book made fearful havoc with the reputations of many 
formidable partisans. Garfield's peccadilloes were not without 
a damaging effect, in view of the persistent denial of them by 
himself and his party friends. The arbitrary and unlawful as- 
sessment of the Federal office-holders by Republican leaders 
shook the allegiance of many of the rank and file of the party ; 
and the contemptuous treatment of all suggestions for the re- 
form of the civil service alienated a still larger number from 
the Republican fold. So it was with the nomination of Mr. 
Blaine for the presidency, after the complete exposure of his 
corrupt methods and his chronic mendacity. All these things 
had very seriously impaired the reputation of the good old party 
and its hold on the popular regard. But no one of them had 
operated more distinctly to destroy all its supposed ethical claims 
to the support of our "best men," and to make those claims 
ridiculous, than its alliance with Mahone, and his investiture 
with all Federal pati-onage and influence within the borders of 
Virginia. It was only by the license and with the assistance of 
the Federal administration that Mahone was enabled to consum- 



Ripudiatioii in llrjinia. 117 

mate the colossal swiiulle by which he has j)hicc(l Virginia out- 
side the pale of civilized states, and reduced lur to the liiiancial 
level of a i)redatory Arab tribe or a coiniiniiiity of Alj^erinc 
pirates. 

Well may ex-Governor Moses specuhite on the ironies of 
Fortune in his solitary cclL "Alas," I hear him say, "how 
different mij^ht have been my fate if I had operateil on a differ- 
ent arena ! I procured by obli(|ue methods an honest advance 
from my friend IMr. Ili^^ginson ; my intentions wtrc miscon- 
strued — it was only a matter of a few dollars and (piitc within 
my means of ultimate repajnnent. The austere authorities of 
Massachusetts have consigned me to the penitentiary, regardless 
of my family, my high position, and my national reputation! 
But where, oh, where are Kiddleberger and Mahone ? They 
have engineered a swindle to the tune of thirteen millions of 
dollars, and instead of a term in the penitentiary they have got 
a term in the Senate of the United States. Why am not I in 
the Senate, and why are not they in the penitentiary ? " 

It would be hard to tell. Compared with the United States 
senators from Virginia, Moses in the penitentiary may well 
pose as a Marcellus in exile. 

September 10, 1885. 



XIX. 

REPUDIATION IN VIRGINIA. 



How it reads in History. — MaJione, liiddlehrrgrr^ and 
Wise. — T7ie Fourteenth Amendment hardly an Unmixed 
Blessing. 

It was not without being aware that the narrative was some- 
what complicated and tedious that I gave in my last chapter a 
summary of the circmnstanccs under which the ]>ublic debt of 
Virginia was contracted, and of the methods in which it has 
been handled since the passage of the Funding Act of 1871. 
But the subject is important and in many points of view inter- 
esting to politicians, and in these days we are all nieasmably 
politicians, whether in petticoats or pantaloons. 



118 Chapters for the Times. 

I have before made passing reference to the legislation of 
1879, which resulted in a second Funding Bill contemplating 
au agreement to recognize the princijial of the public debt, and 
to scale the interest for a term of years. This was regarded as 
a triumph of the debt-payers, and it was in no sense discredita- 
ble. Indeed, Virginia received much praise from her neighbors 
for her comparative honesty. A Baltimore financial circular 
was quite gushing on the subject, compariug her conduct favor- 
ably with the action of Tennessee, North Carolina, and Louisi- 
ana, and congratulating her people because they had upheld the 
honor of their State, and had not sought to '"''take advantage of 
their sovereignty to defraud their creditors^ Soon after the 
same circular announced that the opponents of the bill were 
electioneering for Its repeal ; and it advised the bondholders to 
avail themselves of its provisions seasonably, for the repeal was 
just possible and delays were dangerous. The bondholders saw 
the point and were not slow in taking the hint ; by the month 
of August about $12,000,000 of consols, peelers [unfunded] and 
old bonds had been sent in for conversion. The bonds indeed 
came in so rapidly that the State auditor was compelled to sus- 
pend the receipt of them till he could dlsj^ose of the accumula- 
tion. The holders, feeling that half a loaf was better than no 
bread, governed themselves accordingly. And they moved none 
too soon, for the Readjusters carried the day, Mahone and Rld- 
dleberger were In the ascendant, and eai^ly In 1880 the General 
Assembly passed the RIddleberger bill which Governor HoUIday 
vetoed. In view of the opposition to the Funding Bill known 
as the M'CuUoch act, and the fact that a majority of the Gen- 
eral Assembly were in favor of abrogating its provisions, fund- 
ing under it had ceased before the act was repealed by legisla- 
tion. 

During the year 1881 the debt question remained open, and 
was the subject of no end of i-esolvlng on the part of the several 
political conventions. It was the only material Issue before the 
people that figured in the crystallization of parties. The con- 
vention of the Keadjusters reasserted their purpose to settle the 
State debt on the principles of the vetoed RIddleberger bill, 
which distinctly repudiated 1^13,000,000 of indebtedness. Men 
of this class John Marshall would have recognized as the 
"damned rascals" proper or special. The Republicans were 



Repudiatlun in Virjlnia. 119 

divuletl. One wing of this piuty was disposotl to cntrr at once 
into fnll eoiunumion with the Kwuljusters on their own terms, 
and hohl no lu'pnblicun convention. The other wing were not 
quite prepared to take up their (quarters with '• the devil and his 
angels " and coniproniised on a sort of i)urgatory, in which thev 
called each other "Straight-Outs." After some conferences of 
the wire-pullers, however, the two wings determined to meet in 
convention. When they met, to avoid possible unpleasantness, 
tliey agreed to disagree and fded into separate halls. The result 
was that one party resolved that tiiey would vote for the Kead- 
juster nominees, but that they would not abate one jot or tittle 
of their determination to pay to the last cent everything that 
Virginia owed. The Straight-Outs resolved to make sei)arate 
nominations and adopted the most stringent resolutions, " pledg- 
ing" in the "most solemn form" the Kepubliean ])arty of the 
State to the full payment of the whole debt of the State, less the 
one third set aside as justly belonging to West Virginia. They 
made their independent nominations. The nominees would not 
interfere with Keadjuster success, and were i)roni})tly got out of 
the way to give a clear coast to Mahone, Kiddleberger — and 
Satan. 

It should be told to the credit of the colored voters that many 
of them w^ere unwilling to train in such company. They held a 
convention at Petersburg, in which a considera''lc number of 
delegates resolved that they would have nothing to do with the 
Repudiators, entered their protest against the disgi-aceful coali- 
tion, withdrew in a body, and issued an address to the people. 
It was no wonder that honest and respectal)le colored persons 
should be unwilling to mix themselves up in such an enterprise. 

The Democratic or Conservative convention adopted unani- 
mously a resolution in which they " condennied repuiliation [Ijy 
Virginia] in every shape and form as a blot upon her honor, a 
blow to her permanent welfare, and an obstacle to her progres.s, 
in wealth, influence and pov.er." They pledged themselve.s 
further to use every effort to secure an honest settlement of the 
debt, with the assent of the creditors, on the basis of a three per 
cent. bond. They were as far from assenting to forcible ad- 
justment or repudiation as ever. 

The election of the year resulted in the formation of a Kead- 
juster Executive government and of a Readjuster majority in 



120 Chapters for the Times. 

both branches of the General Assembly. The Court of Appeals 
was reconstructed by the legislature by the appointment of five 
Reatljuster judges. The Riddleberger bill, repudiating nearly 
one half of the public debt of the State, was passed by a large 
majority; and two other bills known as the Coupon Killers 
round off the nefarious history. 

What was once a great Commonwealth — what is now a Com- 
monwealth witli -$352,000,000 of taxable property — sacrificed 
her credit and her honor for a money consideration so abso- 
lutely insignificant to each individual tax-j)ayer that it would 
hardly seem a sufficient inducement for dishonesty to the in- 
mates of a poor-house. 

Thus we see, however, that more than ten years of hard work 
was necessary to sink the people of Virginia to the level of 
repudiation. It is stated in the Republican jjlatform of the 
present canvass that the Conservatives have been in the habit 
of styling the men engaged in this business " repudiators and 
thieves," and of denouncing readjustment as " the work of 
ignorant negroes and mean whites." As a stranger, I do not 
know that I should think it becoming to use such language, but 
Virginians may be allowed to speak of each other as they please. 
As far as the epithets go, perhaps I should not much object to 
the downrightness of the Conservatives in calling a spade a 
spade. With regard to the r.verments of fact, I can only say 
that a patient attempt to learn the truth leaves me no reason to 
doubt that readjustment is really the work of the two classes 
to which the Democrats ascribe it. If I can credit Mr. Wise, 
he expects to carry the State by a solidarity of the colored vote, 
with an auxiliary force of white men who are real believers in 
the policy, the justice and the gentleship of breaking the com- 
mandment which strikes at the root of repudiation. Such men 
can be notliing but mean, whether black or white ; none the 
less so certainly for being white. 

While Blaine, Sherman, and Hoar are howling through the 
country their anathemas against the practical working of the 
Fourteenth Amendment, can they suppose that under the cir- 
cumstances stated the intelligent and honest voters of Virginia 
can regard it as an unmixed blessing? 

September 21, 1885. 
Valley Glk.vmer Office, Lee, Berksliire Co., Mass. 10 cents siugle, $5.00 an liundred. 



